Create a New Tomorrow

Hi I am Here with Matthew Scarfo. He provide a comprehensive fitness program for his clients that exploits every element of his expertise and 20 years of credentialled experience. Corrective Exercise, Fitness Nutrition, Functional Flexibility & Strength, Strength Training, Weight-Loss, and Lifestyle Modification. here is the full episode hope you enjoy. Listen in your favorite podcast app.

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Ari Gronich 0:01  

Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I did not get results, they did not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system want to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are joining me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree, and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gronich and this is create a new tomorrow podcast.

Welcome back to another edition of creative new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. And I have with me, Matthew scarfo. He is an endurance athlete, corrective exercise specialist, human movement specialist. He's got 20 plus years in the fitness and health industry, and with a array of certifications and titles behind his name. And so I am really looking forward to this conversation. Because as you know, this is kind of my bailiwick. This is what I've been doing for 26 years is performance training, helping athletes go from injuries to gold medals. And so that is, you know, I'm just so excited to have this conversation today with Matt. Matt, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, and how you got into this industry and why it's so important to you.

Matthew Scarfo 1:58  

Sure, so, my name is Matthew scarfo. I'm a certified personal trainer among a number of other things I got into the fitness industry about 21 years ago, almost as a lost soul. I was a I didn't do very well in school, I dropped out of high school, the only thing I really ever always fell back on was fitness and exercise. And when I was younger, it was more about aesthetics and strength, as opposed to performance and functionality. Though, one day I was working out in my parents basement, and my mother came downstairs and said, Listen, you don't do anything you dropped out of high school. You're really not racking up any points here. So why don't you pursue a career in fitness and personal training, since this is what you love to do? And you do it anyway? Why don't you invest some time and some effort into figuring that out. So I took her advice. I became a personal trainer, shortly thereafter, got my first job as a personal trainer at a local mom and pop a big gym, but a local gym nonetheless. And I moved my career. From there 10 years later to opening up my own private personal training and performance studio in Morristown, which is now closed thanks to the protracted shutdown due to COVID. But, you know, nonetheless, it's a it was a pivot point. And I think a big positive for me. And over the course of my career, I've just pursued more information, more knowledge, more understanding, and, and it's taken me to being a performance athlete, myself and endurance athlete myself. So whether it's obstacle course races, like Spartan runs, or ultra runs, or any of the other recreational crazy things that I do, I've been known to do tire flips for a few miles or walking lunges for a few miles. All in all, for the fact of just putting myself in a physical situation and experimenting with different things that that I've come across, and that I've learned to see if there's any applicability not just to my own fitness, but to my clients as well.

Ari Gronich 4:03  

Nice miles of lunges, just imagine if you're in the audience, do 10 lunges and see how far you are. And then imagine that you've done that for one full mile. And that's, you know, to so many people that is untenable on attainable. conscionable right. And so, yeah, it's a lot of unknowns. So, where's the mental acuity that comes with pushing your body that far? You know, like, how does how does, how does that work on a brain?

Matthew Scarfo 4:53  

So, I'm a firm believer and a practitioner. of if you can run five Miles, you can run 50. If you can do 50 lunges, you can do 1000 lunges, so long as that you're not in a physically deleted risk condition where you're not, quote unquote pushing through an injury. As long as you've got healthy joints, healthy muscles, healthy bones, and your energy systems are sufficient to perpetuate that kind of activity. And after you've already run five miles, the energy systems aren't going to shift, you're already aerobic, at that point, you could got enough energy stored in your body to do that for quite a long time. So tire flips, it's very much the same lunges, it's very much the same. If you could do a handful you can do them all. And in terms of the headspace that you have to achieve, it's just a matter of boredom, I suppose would be the easiest way to boil it down because you have to so a mile is about 1009 walking lunges for me and took me it takes me a little bit over say like an hour, hour and 10 minutes or so to get them done. And it's not the the pain that I feel at lunch number 800 is no different than the pain that I feel after lunch number 400. It's finding a goal and and working towards that goal, it can't be open ended because if it's open ended, then your your decision to stop is also open ended. It's the success is no more than it lunge away. failure or you know, the end of the activity is no more than a lunge away. So giving myself a particular goal, and then working towards it, knowing that every step I take is a step closer. So in terms of the the mental acuity, I mean, there's certain tricks that that I play that other endurance athletes play on themselves to, to keep these activities going for, however long they need to go on for mine in particular is I tell myself that I've already finished the activity. I'm already at the finish line waiting for you. I'm just waiting for enough time to pass on my body can catch up to the reality that I've already created. So what I'm doing is actually fulfilling. What I'm doing is I'm fulfilling the past that is necessary. In order for me to have accomplished. What it is that I'm that I'm looking for now, I'd mentioned before we had gone on air that I had listened to a few conversations that you had, and one of which you had mentioned a book, I believe it was called the science of getting rich. Right. Right. Is that Does that ring a bell? Yeah. And that's, that's, that's an old book, too. That's written by like, oh, two, I

Ari Gronich 7:37  

think it was originally or 19. Close to like it was the early 1900s. That book was was created. And it's the basis for the movie The secret for the entire law of attraction, you know, world that has that has been proliferated in the last probably 10, 15 years. Yeah,

Matthew Scarfo 8:04  

sure. And there's so much truth to that book, I it's a short book, the audio books only about an hour, actually. And I remember listening to it on a particular run that I was on. And there's so much truth to everything that is stated in that book. And what I do is I, I pick a reality, what's the reality that I want the reality of that I want is I'll give you another example back at the end of May, I decided to run from my house in North Jersey down to Washington DC, so 411 kilometers away, and the only way that I was able to do that, and it took a lot of meditation, it took a lot of praying, I do most of the time use those two terms interchangeably with all due respect back to whoever we gain our conscience from. But I wouldn't have been able to achieve that or any other goal for that matter if I didn't already see myself having accomplished it. And then making that future a certain future by by backfilling in the events that have to occur between now and then. So if I were to quit doing anything that I had set my mind to it, I'm essentially changing a future that I've already believed in. So it's it's staying on task, it's staying on track. It's reminding ourselves why we're doing this and reminding ourselves that you know, there is no future that exists other than the future that we've created for ourselves in this future casting are in this mind experiment, you know, I'm already there. My body is already there. I'm just waiting for the time to pass it this way. My now body kind of walks through the still frame of my then body that's there waiting for me. And, and just keeping keeping my head focused, or completely unfocused is sometimes also the trick but it really doesn't take much we all do it in varying degrees every single day regardless of what the task is. I've always found it to be interesting that, you know, if we're running late for work, and we anticipate getting to work nine minutes late, we end up getting to work nine minutes late. If we anticipate achieving something in a certain amount of time. It's almost as though the future conspires to make that. So. So if we set a goal, and we give ourselves an objective that we're going to hit do or die, the universe has an interesting way of conspiring to make sure that that that's true, it's almost as though we create the future by thinking in a sense, and that's, that's part of my, one of my tricks in my bag of tricks.

Ari Gronich 10:39  

It's pretty fascinating that the, that's how organizational planners create business plans. That's how operational organizational and operational planning happens. That's reverse engineering of anything really, is, is what you're talking about. But you're taking the next step of future planning, and then backtracking it. And then you're taking that next step, which most people don't do, which is they see the future they want. They believe in the future that they want. They plan for the future that they want. And then they see that plan. And they go, Oh, my God, I don't really want that. Right. So what drew it's made the difference between making the plan and then doing the actions that are in the plan, and doing them consistently enough that you get the result that you're after.

Matthew Scarfo 11:53  

I think that it is largely a challenge for everybody. It's not the first mile, that's the hardest, it's it's getting your shoes on and getting outside. That's, that's often the hardest part, we know. And I and I've got three kids, three young kids, and when they get in one of their moods, or they get frustrated with something that they're doing, I tell them, just find yourself doing what it is that you want to be doing, turn the brain off and just find find yourself outside walking on the street, that'll turn into the run, but you can make that five minutes it takes from getting your shoes on, to walk into the end of the driveway feel like a very painful eternity, if you're dreading it. But rather than dread it, make the commitment that that's what you're going to do. And then turn your brain off, you put your shoes on, you find yourself outside. And now look at this I'm running. So it's it's not the first step. It's the hardest it's it's getting, it's walking yourself up to the staircase. That's the most difficult part because action creates action. And if you take that first step, you're going to take the second step. So when my kids get into a bad mood, one of the tactics that I've used with them, my son in particular is a little tough, sometimes he's a seven years old. I tell him, I'm like, Listen, you don't need a reason you don't need an excuse to go into the bathroom, close the door. I don't care what you're doing there. But when you come out, I want you to have shifted your entire state, I want you to change your mentality. You can walk out of that bathroom, anybody you want to be, you're walking in that bathroom as somebody, Clark Kent, for that matter, and you're walking out a Superman, you can change your state, immediately, you just have to make sure that you are doing it with great intent. And you're doing it with great deliberation. You can't just walk in and walk out nothing's changed. You need to walk in, tell yourself that you're going to walk out and be confident and be empathetic, and be happy, compassionate, smart and caring. And when you come out of that, when you open that door and you walk out, you're much closer to that goal that you set than you were to any other goal that was even available to you before you walked in you were in trouble before you walked in that door. So for us, we don't have to walk into the bathroom, we could simply close our eyes, take a few deep breaths, visualize what it is that we want to do. And it doesn't necessarily have to be at the finish line just yet. You can visually Close your eyes and visualize yourself getting your shoes on put your shoes on. Take another few seconds visualize yourself walking down the driveway, you're walking on the driveway. Now visualize yourself finishing your five K or crossing the finish line or or completing what it is that you've already done. Because what you're doing is you're laying the groundwork for it. And if if you do that mentally, that's really half of that that's half of anything. I mean, that's all great things begin with intent, we need that instantiation we need there needs to be an intent in the direction of what we're trying to achieve. And without that we end up walking in circles we end up biting our nails we end up procrastinating, we end up wondering more We are doing all of those things. So, as opposed to doing that, just find that step forward. But what is that next motion that you need to perform in order to get closer to that run, and you don't have to think about all the bits and pieces of it at first, it's just what do I have to do in order to run I got to get my shoes on. Okay, I'm gonna get my shoes on, I don't want to run. We're not talking about that right now. Just put your shoes on. Great. What do I have to do next, gotta walk to the edge of the driveway, I don't want to walk to the end of the driveway, turn that off, just find your rest at the end of the driveway. And now that you're there, it's gonna take a whole lot more effort to turn around and walk back inside than it would be to take that first next step. So it's extremely important for us to to visualize, not just the end result, but what's that next step going to be until we can get over that hump and then momentum begins to take us in the direction that we're trying to go. That's always worked for me. That's,

Ari Gronich 15:52  

I like how detailed that is. And I like how, you know the step by step by step. As you know, my background is working with Olympic athletes and and pro athletes and I normally got them post injury, and post injury. Anybody who has an injury is trepidatious to do the thing that caused the injury. One of my things was I did a double flip over a car at 45 miles an hour off my motorcycle, literally, it was a tuck Pike, gymnastics martial arts kicked in, in the middle of what happened I got hit 45 miles an hour, t boned. And I literally took pike double flip over the car landed on my feet, unfortunately, for me was wearing sandals and shorts, which I don't recommend when you're riding a motorcycle, and and have a I didn't have a broken bone in my body. I didn't have, you know, a damaged brain or anything, did have his Road Rash, massive Road Rash. Other than that, nothing. And one of the first things that I did when I could was I got on my friend's bike, and I started to write it with Olympic athletes. They are ready to get back on the horse, but they're trepidatious and their trainers, their coaches, their their people who are not skilled in multiple modalities, typically they're they're they're pretty narrow focused. And they'll tell them you know, he'll never be as good as he was. So for example, like Kobe Bryant got injured. And Gary Vee, you know, was saying he'll be about 70% we're used to that. It's okay. You know, we're used to this in the industry. And I went and I talked to Mitch Kupchak. And I was like, No, he could be about 110% of what he was, if he's trained properly. And all you need to know like, how much money is gonna cost you for him to be out and how much money is like that was the conversation I had with him well, and is is is when somebody is injured, or weak, or they feel weak in some way. And they feel like that's going to be something that is going to stop them. And you know, this goes for me too. I got in a car accident had back to neck surgery and things like that, and I become a little trepidatious when I don't have proper trainers to work with me, even though I know what to do. You always need a coach, in my opinion, somebody to see the things and you know, that you can't see. And so I become trepidatious, I don't want to work out, I don't want to do push ups. I don't want to do exercises, right? Because I'm going to hurt myself again. So if somebody is listening to this, and they're hearing you say, just walk out the door, just put on your shoes. That is a really good first step, even if you don't actually go outside. If you get the shoes on one day, and then the next day, you open the door and close the door. And then the next day you open the door and you go outside. And then the next day you go and do the walk, you know to the driveway, and then the next day you'd walk down the block. And then the next day you walk a mile, you know, like taking those baby steps is really important. Now, I learned some of this through National Academy of Sports Medicine and you've been an ASM grad progressions, equal results right? If you try to do it all at once you create more injury. So talk to talk to us a little bit about that and how do you motivate How do you get somebody to have a belief that they can do something When they're injured, and they don't feel like like they can, there's no hope left.

Matthew Scarfo 20:07  

I'm so glad that you asked me this question. So I myself, I've, I've got a history of injuries as well, nothing is dramatic, thank goodness as motorcycle or car accidents. And I'm glad that you're well. But I had a slip and fall about 15 years ago on ice that ended up giving me compression fractures in T six through 10, which turned into degenerative arthritis, which has depleted the bone mass of each of those vertebrae by 20, to 30%. So I've got stenosis, I've got arthritis, I did not opt to go for that fusion simply because that procedure, they go in from the front. And I was already a father at that point, boom, when we would cross the bridge of talking about the surgery. And I wasn't going to let them deflate my lung and move my heart out of the way to get into this thing. I said, when I'm no longer able to carry my kids, we'll talk about it. But until then I'll suffer

my lower back l four l five, the, the disk has gone, it looks black on it on the MRI, l five, this one also gone. I've got characteristic sciatica running down both my legs, it's always there. And it and I'm always managing pain as well. But one thing that I've coached my clients with, and I practice this is and I tell them this all the time, it's not a problem unless it's a problem. So if you anticipate it being a problem, I guess, to go back to what we had spoken about before your future casting that this thing is going to interrupt you in some way. But rather, when we've got an injury, and everybody's got something, whether it's a shoulder or wrist and elbow and knee or hip, whatever, what I what I advise my clients to do is you're you're moving around with compromised movement patterns simply because you're anticipating the pain, a pain that is never going to not necessarily ever going to spike or become an issue. But because when we move in a particular way, or in a particular range of motion, and we begin to feel the sensations that remind us that there's an injury there, we hit the brakes on it right away now, and I've had clients say, No, I want to stop there, I don't feel safe about it. So all right, well, let's unload the machine for a second and move you through the movement, let's find out exactly where is the red line. Because if you're operating in orange, that's a perceptual orange, that red line is reflective, that's where you don't have a choice, you're going to pull your hand away from the flame without even thinking about it. But you could bring your hand intentionally pretty close to that flame without being burned without causing a problem. And that's something that only the client, or the individual is really going to know because even as as great of a trainer as I claim to be, and I I claim to be a functional emphasis where I can feel my clients moving through their emotions, I can feel the tensions, I can feel the mobilities, I could, I could be in that movement with them. But I still can't feel what it is that their nervous system is telling them. So I tell them, move through a range of motion. And slowly, don't be afraid you're going to feel it's going to be uncomfortable, find where that red line is, because you've got from being completely motionless and at rest all the way through that yellow zone and up into that red line before it becomes a problem. So don't restrict yourself because you're afraid of being uncomfortable. You're going to be uncomfortable, if I yield it to all of my issues and all of my pains, I would never get off of the couch. So it's important to figure out where is it really a problem, instead of anticipating that it's going to be a problem. If you move any farther, do it in a safe in a controlled way unloaded or with extremely light load and move that shoulder through a range of motion. Where do you feel it Okay, hurts? Can you move it a little bit farther? Is it getting louder? Or is it staying the same because you have you'll have all of that available range of motion if you use it safely. And, and deliberately and you stay connected to the joint and the muscles and attention and you're not just throwing the weights around or or moving your body carelessly through space. So figure out where the problem actually begins. Not when it begins to warn you that it might be there or not. That's first of all. And then second of all, we whether we use that because we want to procrastinate, we want to use it as an excuse. The fact is that we have way more ability than we give ourselves credit for. Now, when we were children. And we would bank young child, I've got a three year old also and I see her do this. She'll bang her elbow on the table pretty hard, and that'll ruin her whole day. I mean, that's it that that pain is there. She cries about it. She whines about it, you know, it you can see that she plays with it, you know and it doesn't bother her but then somebody's paying attention to her more as time goes on. And she or you or I have banged our elbow X amount of times over the course of our life and over the course of our development, that same impact with the same velocity in the same place in the same tissues, hurts less than less, it doesn't actually hurt less than less, because if we were to put up to a brain scan and take a look at what's going on, your brain is having the very same reaction to it. Now hear me 41 years old as it did when I was two years old, on paper, it looks exactly the same, which changes our perception of that pain. Now, over the course of these 40, ensuing years, there may have been opportunities where I bang my elbow when I was in front of somebody I was trying to impress. So I bury it, I build a layer on top of it, I might be out in public where if I bang my elbow, and I show weakness, or I look like a sissy, that that'll be detrimental to my reputation. So I bury it again. And little by little, we create these layers on top of these, these these sensations, these injuries, where the brain still sees it the same way. It's just the person that's experiencing it is a different person now. So we, we have to get comfortable with the fact of walking it off, so long as it's not going to create greater problems. And again, it's up to the individual to really determine where is that yellow, turn into orange. And then where is it finally red. But if we build a thick enough skin on top of our injuries on top of my sciatica, meisten versus my degenerative arthritis, it's all still there. But I don't give it a voice I do when it's gotten to a particular point. And I'm, whether I'm stressed or I'm tired, and it hurts a little bit more. But the fact is that we could probably work through way more things and we give ourselves credit for, and whether we err on the side of caution, because we're overly cautious, or we err on the side of caution because we're, we're just not motivated enough to care to proceed. The fact remains that we create this bubble that we end up moving within to avoid any sensation of discomfort or pain. And inevitably, what that does is that changes are movement mechanics that changes the length tension relationships with the muscles and the joints that they govern, so on and so forth. And over time, that leads to greater problems. And we see this in the aging population, we see the rounded back, we see the internally rotated shoulders, we see the protruding neck, we see issues in the lumbar spine, because they're trying to accommodate for all of their pains and their injuries, they end up sticking themselves in a very, very small box that eventually you're not able to, you're not able to work your way out of. So take up as much space as you can move through as much space as you can use your mobility as best as you can find a resistance that you can move through space as much as you can and experience the discomfort that accompanies your injuries. But figure out where that line is, where does it actually turn into pain? When are we being overly cautious? And when are we being appropriately cautious, and we'll find that we've got a whole lot more room than we think that we do.

Ari Gronich 28:04  

That's a it's a good explanation. I know for me, I have I have all kinds of issues but that's why I got into the field to begin with. But one of them is a brain tumor. And when I was about 24 hours when they found it, so I had been treated since I was about 12 before they found it and it's a pituitary causes all kinds of hormone imbalances had to be injected into puberty, breast reduction surgery when I was 14. Wow, weight gain all those kinds of things. So I was an athlete I'm eight years gymnastics eight years. With baseball, martial artist, tennis player long distance cycler I'm an athlete who's gaining weight, gaining weight, gaining weight, gaining weight, right. And so I'm 24 years old, they finally find the tumor and they start drugging me up and when they did that the drugs made it so that it was actually difficult for me to even leave my house the mechanism of choice in there of like I couldn't even sometimes get myself out onto the balcony you know, I could always make an appointment though. I could always keep keep my obligations but as soon as I was done with that obligation back in the house and like hard for me to it was hard for me to get out. And so when I hear you say Okay, so what if I just opened the door? What do you know like so people have these anxieties these these? fears, phobias, Agra phobia I had a friend whose dad was agoraphobic For probably 1520 years, I actually spent a week at his house and I never met him that week, like ever. He was that, wow. So the question becomes the mental side, the chemical side, right? Because chemistry has a lot to do with it. So you have a nutritional background, as well as some of the other things that you have. So let's talk a little bit about how food makes motivation, either easier or less. Right? So how does how to how do we get the chemistry right? So the brain can be right? Or is it the brain before the chemistry or how do they interact with each other, so that motivation, energy, expression of that energy, etc, those kinds of things are really in alignment with the goal and purpose.

Matthew Scarfo 31:00  

So I've got a few things that I can comment on that with First, I think, in terms of chemistry, if if I could give anybody a single piece of advice that I think would change their lives, and this goes for every single person on this planet, it would be that your mouth isn't made for breathing, your nose is made for breathing, your mouth is an eating and chewing organ and not a breathing organ, and you've got specialized structures within your face. We have an external nose, we have internal sinuses, we've got twists and turns in there which add vertices to the air, our nasal passages produce nitric oxide, which allow us to really change our blood chemistry, and our brain chemistry before we even eat a single thing. So we can go without food for weeks, water for days, air for minutes. So and we and we often breathe in properly, we're made to breathe through our nose, we're made to have higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in our blood than we're taught to have. So we're taught that oxygen is you know, we breathe to get oxygen, which isn't true, we breathe to expel carbon dioxide, we don't breathe to inhale oxygen. So I've done certain tests actually bought a blood oximeter and used it when I ran and push myself to 204 210 beats a minute, which is which is very high performing for me. And sucking wind, I check my blood oxygen, it's 94%, the same as when I'm resting or when I'm sleeping. But the problem is I'm breathing heavy, because I'm trying to expel the waste products of my activity and aerobic activity, which is carbon dioxide. So I think that it starts it really starts there. If we're mouth breathing, and we're chest breathing, and we're panic breathing, then we're always in a state of anxiety. And we're always in a state of stress of fight or flight. And, and there might be the foundation, or at least the first few floors of our anxiety issues is no matter what we eat, no matter what we practice, if we're breathing improperly, we very well could always be in a stress state, which would then precipitate improper eating, proper food choices, impulsive food choices, and so on. So I think that it really all starts with, with breathing with nose breathing, at a calm and relaxed pace, getting used to that sleeping, when your mouth is sleeping with your mouth closed, exercising with your mouth closed, I'm an avid whenever I work out, I'm always a nose breather, even when I have the elevation mask on. I'm always breathing through the nose. It's taken a little bit of practice, but it takes less practice than most people think. Now in terms of diet, if we were to eliminate that from the equation and assume that we're all breathing properly and perfectly in terms of food, there are certain stress inducing foods. And I think that there's probably some that apply to all of us. And then there's some that applied to certain individuals, like we still don't know exactly how, for example, somebody with a gluten sensitivity when they consume gluten that might be buried in a food somewhere that doesn't just affect their digestive system, which is also the house of our immune system, which again, stress response and so on, but it affects it could affect their joints, it could affect their mind state, it can affect them anything. So whether you are allergic to the gluten or or lactose or, or beans or whatever the case is, I think that if it's important to explore and know what kind of sensitivities we have to foods because they manifest themselves in other ways besides just digestive issues. We're also kind of up against the the, the machine that is the food industry or the commercialized food industry. And many people don't realize it but there's a reason Why Starburst or red, yellow, orange, pink. There's a reason why these lollipops are bright and blue and red because these are the colors of fruits and, and good foods for us as they appear in the wild. So they're appealing to a subconscious need that we have and to procure these foods from, you know, 1000s and 1000s of years ago. So they tricked us into eating these foods that are that are terrible for us. The only redeeming quality they have is that they trick the brain into thinking that it's necessary. So therein lies the neurochemical responses, you know, the dopamine kind of leads us up to that event, and then you know, we eat it. And now we've got, you know, the feel good chemicals Russian, let us know that this was a very rewarding and good experience, when in fact, it didn't do anything for us at all except make us sick or or interrupt our functions as they should be. And we, as a culture, we haven't really spoken much about

additives and preservatives and artificial colors. And all of these other things we talk mostly in terms of macronutrients. And, and though that's important, a calorie isn't a calorie, your body treats fructose much much different than it treats glucose. And And therein lies the problem because this high fructose corn syrup, devoid of any kind of fiber, or anything like that increases your sugar level, it increases your heart rate, it increases your anxiety responses and increases so much. So in terms of nutrition, and diet, and the things that we could be eating should be eating, in order for us to kind of subdue the natural anxiety that we all have in this modern world. I regret to say my best guess is that it would be pretty bland, fermented foods, organ meats, bone marrow, broths, fibrous fruits and vegetables, you know, zero, absolutely zero sweetened anything. Even if it's stevia doesn't matter. It's just not supposed to be there. And, and relying on the natural sweetness of foods to recalibrate our taste buds, and not overwhelmed, and not to have them overwhelmed with these foods that are 100% sugar. So I think it's important to feed your brain first and foremost, with a balanced diet, and what's a balanced diet that really depends on who you talk to my school, told me that, you know, generally healthful diet is 60% carbs, 20 25% fats, and 15 20% proteins and we need far less protein than we're led to believe. And I think that they're, I don't know, the study is behind it. But I'm sure that that creates some sort of stress. I mean, it creates stress on our, on our kidneys in order to metabolize these things. But, you know, we need for a woman who even wants to build mass, I've always consulted it, you know, point four 2.6 grams per pound of body weight is like, just fine. You don't need to supplement a protein shake when a woman asks me, what kind of protein shake should I have? I said, Why are you drinking a protein shake the whole chances are, you're getting sufficient protein even more than enough protein than you need. Same thing with men bodybuilders, magazines will tell you two to four grams per pound, maybe a gram at most will still get you exactly what you want. But we don't live in a culture of of sufficiency. We live in a culture of excessiveness better, more than not enough. And and I think we're gonna find out eventually that what we thought was not enough before is plenty. So I think just mindful eating, being careful of the things that we're putting in our mouth, and that we're asking our bodies to digest and metabolize and excrete, because some of those things don't excrete depending on the kinds of fish that you eat, the sources that you get them from the heavy metals and so on. So just be mindful of what we're eating, trying to eliminate sugar as best as we can, from our diet, any kind of added sugar, and not being afraid of fat. I mean, fat, fat is generally a good thing as long as it's not hydrogenated fats, if it's a natural fat that occurs in a steak or fish or an avocado like these things are okay. You wouldn't supplement that but but as part of a whole, no, they were designed in a particular way, which would benefit us the most and that's why we consume them. Right. So

Ari Gronich 39:19  

so here's, here's my, my take, and mostly what you're saying I agree with the high carb thing, there is no essential carbs. There's essential fiber that right, but there's no essential carb that your body is required to have in order to function at an optimal level. Grains In fact, from bread, whatever you have it with grains absorb minerals. So when you're eating the grain if you're eating bread, or for instance, and it's like a whole grain I'm eating whole grains or even Keane wa rice, things like that wheat. They absorb minerals, so when you eat them They absorb when you eat the mineral, like you take in a mineral supplement, and then you eat the food, the mineral supplement does not go into your body, the mineral supplement goes into the food that you just ate, and it's passed right through you instead. And if you saw my body motions, I'm showing passes, right. But if, if, if you eat those kinds of high grains, you literally become mineral deficient. Not only that, but the soil itself is mineral deficient. So the mineral, the grains don't have the mineral content that they used to have anyway. But if you eat meat, you're eating everything that that meet a ate, right? That's why it's important to choose your meat well, protein is absolutely in our culture, you got to make gains, I gotta make gains, right. This is what I hear from my, my, my kid, you know, when he when he was working out and he was in high school is I gotta make gains, right, I got to build up the bulk. And, and so all everything was about was about the protein. So protein, and meats and things are not part of our normal, everyday diet. But berries, things that you hunt and gather are what are part of a natural human diet, if you hunt it, if you can gather it, that is part if you cultivate it, not part of the diet, right. So when you cultivate corn, especially in a field and only corn in that field, and hybridize it so it's got a heavy amount of sugar in it. Because we've hybridized and genetically modified it, not good for you. So I would say I get that at ASM and a lot of people have have put that carb on this pedestal the carbs on the pedestal, but my feeling is fat should be put on a pedestal, good fats should be put on the pedestal pedestal more than the proteins or the the high carbs. Proteins are good because they give you the essential amino acids they give you. And that that could be from spinach or kale or you know, it doesn't have to necessarily be from meat, or fish, or you know, that kind of thing. It could be from any of those other sources. But things like nuts, and nut fats like coconut oil, we all have been hearing about MCT. And the amazing benefits that MCT oil has. But the thing is, we want our fats to be of the high enough quality that it turns our brain on versus turning it off if you're using canola oils, and you know corn oils, and these highly processed vegetable oils and seed oils. Very, very inflammatory. They cause all kinds of inflammatory disorders, right. But if you're eating the omega threes, omega nines, even omega 17, I think is known as B 17. It was cancer one, but different Megas, the good Linoleic acids and things like that. Those are essential for your body. And I think what most people don't understand is our brain is made up of fat and cholesterol. That's what causes it to be. It's exists because of fat and cholesterol. they starve ourselves of fat, we starve ourselves of our thinking mind. And we end up getting all kinds of disorders. And in fact, in endurance athletes, I've been seeing this a lot, they're moving away from the carb loading days, or a competition or before a race or a marathon and starting to fat load. And they're finding their joints are much less, you know, inflamed at the end, they cramp less, there's all kinds of less issues because they're fat loading versus carb loading. So I may or may not be disagreeing with you. I'm just, you know, going based on on what you said, but that would be my take on on it. And just as a general thing, because we brought up gluten. Gluten is a poison. It's a protein and it's a poisonous protein that is in the plant to stop bugs from eating it. So bugs won't eat that plan. That protein is poisonous to them, it will kill them. And so when we eat it, it doesn't matter if you're highly allergic on a top of the scale allergic. Or if you're on the bottom of the scale, as far as a response goes, it's going to cause an inflammatory response no matter what.

Now, we have hybridized, and genetically modified our wheat and so forth to have extra gluten. And then we started putting it in everything. I even saw a bottle of water that said gluten free. They had to point that out. But anyway, so just let you know, let's have a little bit of back and forth, that I just said a lot. So what do I think, as an endurance athlete?

Matthew Scarfo 45:55  

So I think it's important that your audience knows that ever since the agricultural revolution is when our, our health as a society began to decline. It was only after we started growing our own foods that that we began to have problems with food. And let's keep in mind that back when the FDA came out with the recommended daily allowances, that that's not for optimal health RDS, or for disease prevention. So that's the minimum that you should eat. If you want to avoid things like berry berry or rickets, it's not a healthful amount, it is the minimum sufficient amount to keep you healthy. Secondly, back in the whenever it was the turn of the night, or the turn of the 20th century, early 1900s, when the FDA was coming out with, you know how much vitamin E is in a, you know, is in a keratin how much calcium is in spinach, these were things that were grown on, comparatively virgin soils. So to your point, these soils weren't stripped of everything that they would need in order to make a carrot from 1920. a carrot of modern day. So the fact that you know, spinach might have had a certain amount of iron way back in the day, that's not the same soil, we've we've depleted that soil so much, that we have to fertilize it. And what you're getting is a carrot, or spinach or broccoli that looks like broccoli, and tastes like broccoli. But it's not the same broccoli that we were having. So if you're relying on these food shorts for different amounts of your your vitamins and your minerals from certain foods, you you're not eating enough, and that that's probably one of the stronger cases for taking a multi whether you agree with it or not, is that we're not eating the same foods as what we were now I used to take a multi I stopped taking a multi, I kind of go on and off with it. I don't necessarily believe in supplementing individual compounds simply because they're not found that way. In nature, there's a congruence in the symbiosis with all of the vitamins and minerals that we eat. And, and buyer beware, for example, when people are purchasing a multivitamin, you need to make sure that the proportions of certain compounds in there are our proper, right. So So zinc and copper are antagonistic. And one of the things that it's it's a correlation, it's not quite a causation, or at least not yet between low zinc levels and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. And what we could do and I grew up, I was diagnosed with that it's a blanket kind of diagnosis for kids that just are hard to manage, I think in a lot of cases. But we had acidic water in our home, we had a blue ring in our tub and a blue ring in our sink. And what that is, is that's elemental copper. I mean, that's, that's the worst kind of copper you could get. That's that and, and oftentimes and cheap vitamins, that's the copper that they put in there, that's the iron that they put in there, these aren't bioavailable things, they're, they're sufficient that I could put them on a label and tell you how much they weigh and how much is in there. But in terms of how much your body can use, it's it's fractional, if any at all. And then you have to take into consideration the, the antagonistic behavior of certain things you might not be getting, you might be actually exceeding more than you're taking in from that particular multivitamin. In terms of carbohydrates, you know, I I agree with you. Now I eat carbohydrates just because I'm a I'm a slave to my own habits and my wife has celiac disease, she was diagnosed she had the biopsy, and we've pretty much taken gluten out of everything in the house just so it's easier for her. But it's what we'll have that really is just a calorie replacement for the for the meal. We have a very big stack of vegetables. We have a couple of servings of meat and then you've got the starch on the side and and you're right and you don't need to eat agricultural alized cardboard hydrates, the ones that are present in the fruits and the vegetables and the tubers naturally occurring, those are going to be in there anyway. And those are accompanied by fiber and other nutrients that make them that make them whole and make them usable. But you know, to your point before about creating an inflammatory response, even if you're not necessarily sensitive to something like gluten, the barrier between the food that's suggesting in our intestines and our bloodstream is one cell thick. It is a single cell thick, and there are certain mechanisms that allow the transportation of, of nutrients into or rather out of our intestines. But when there's an inflammatory response, what used to be neatly packaged cells that created one congruent layer were only these chemical messengers, and transporters could allow things to go back and forth, another creates gaps in between these cells, you get leaky gut syndrome, which creates a whole slew of problems. But

what seems to be a reoccurring phrase here is inflammation. And inflammation is the cause of disease. So anything that we can do to eliminate or diminish the amount of inflammation that we that we acquire in response to the things that we eat, and the things that we do and ingest, and so on, the better off that we're going to be overall. You know, what I don't, I don't want to argue with you about the about the 60 to 25 and the 20. Because, honestly, I think that you are right. And in my own practice, when I've got the choice, I do eat more fatty foods before I exercise. And before I work out, and I found I can say this with certainty, that it, it gives me greater endurance. Now, I never got into the keto diet. I know a little bit about it. But I know that the ketone body is a very powerful, it's a very powerful molecule, it's a very powerful thing. And we derive more energy from it than we do from sugar. And it's a longer lasting energy, it takes some time for our body to get accustomed to using it as a sole source of energy. But I do know that sugar is inflammatory. Even in its natural state, it's generally inflammatory. But rarely do we ever find it in its natural state. We've got away with high fructose corn syrup, and now we call it something else. But it's the same exact thing. That's all in an effort

Ari Gronich 52:20  

for it's called natural sweetener. Right? Right. So when you see no, you know, you see if you see natural sweetener on on the on the label, that's high fructose corn syrup, now they have gotten approval to put that through our FDA, our wonderful, wonderful FDA, they've gotten approval to call it a natural sweetener. So when you see something that says natural, this or natural, that doesn't necessarily mean healthy. Just Just an FYI.

Matthew Scarfo 52:55  

Right? Right. And when you when you've got the alternative to take something like aspartame, which was originally supposed to be an insecticide, but they found out that it's 800 times sweeter than sugar, and it these small doses, it doesn't kill you. And they begin to put that in GM and this and that. I mean, probably talk days about this. But you know, the occurrence of issues that we see now that I didn't see, even when I was a kid in school, the autism, the celiac disease, the peanut allergies, you know, every kid's got something, and, and it's nobody really wants to take a look at the environment, because that's really what it is. It's, it's what we're feeding our kids, it's what we're subjecting our children to, it's, it's the adaptations that we're expecting our body can already manage these these foods, these foreign substances, these foreign chemicals and compounds, when in fact, it's stressful. And the problems that we experienced from them downstream, I think are only beginning to come to light, this is going to get much, much worse than it is now I've got a number of friends in my peer group that that needed fertility treatments for in order to have kids. That's like common practice anymore. And whether it's either over prescribed, or it's just overly present. Now, there's a reason for that, and it's because of our environment. But yeah, I mean, as far as the carbohydrates go, I I think you're right, I don't think you're right. I know you're right. And I can base that really all on just one fact. And that is if you look at when we started growing our own food, that's when the problems started to happen. I'm a hunter. I and I've had this conversation with with vegetarians and vegans and you know, with all due respect to anybody's eating habits or food preferences, I prefer to eat wild game. And the reason is because these are animals that have lived a happy life. They follow up, they've ran around, they know what those feel good chemicals, feeling. Like when they enter their brain, they got to mate, they got to play. They, they didn't live in filth, where they needed antibiotics just to keep them alive like the cows do. And that's the only reason why cows get into biotics is because they would die in the conditions that we keep them in if they didn't otherwise have. So now this is we're entering deer season up here in New Jersey for for shotgun a muzzleloader. And I prefer to have that meat Well, it's cool. There's not a single animal out there, that's a prey animal that, that dies of old age, they generally die very traumatic death, whether they break a leg and they have to, you know, suffer that until it becomes infected and dire, they get eaten by a pack of coyotes. So natural meats, well harvested meats that are that have eaten a diet, that is exactly what they are supposed to eat is critically important. Corn fed beef is not a good beef. I mean, it's still beef, but it's just like we were talking about with the farming 100 years ago, compared to today, it looks like steak, but your body doesn't treat it the same way it did, you know, it would have a cow 100 years ago. So I think food choices is very important. And it's hard anymore, because the marketing is so strong, and the additives are so strong, they make it so we don't even have to chew our food anymore. It's everything so palatable and an easy to swallow McDonald's, you don't have to chew their food or cheeseburgers. There's issues that when I'd mentioned before, that it's important for us to breathe through our nose, that becomes harder and harder when you've got a palate that is shrinking, because you're not working your jaw muscles to chew the foods that we used to chew. I mean, if you wanted sugar 150 years ago, the only way you could get it was to eat this piece of bamboo, which would be sugar cane, you'd get a ridiculous amount of fiber from it and very little sugar, but your job would still work out it would keep the structures in your face and your nose and then your breathing system conditioned and fit. And we lose that now. And that creates problem more and more problems for us as more and more time goes on.

Ari Gronich 57:06  

Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when I could chew on a sugar cane like a sliver of sugarcane. And I'm also old enough to remember when you would we would walk through a berry field and the taste of a strawberry or the taste of a blueberry compared to the taste of them now so much richer and more full flavored, because the mineral content was there, because it had all of the things necessary. I think the statistic is if you were to eat, like some broccoli today versus broccoli 50 years ago, the the equivalent value is for every one that was one broccoli, you know thing. You have to eat like 1512 to 15 broccolis to equal the same amount of nutrients as 150 years ago because of the depletion of mineral and nutrient content in the soil. So just as an interesting thing, same thing with an apple, I think it's eight apples equals the equivalent nutritional value of one apple 50 years ago. However, we've hybridized the apples to have not the minerals not the nutrients but sugar. So apples today are Sweeter, sweeter, sweeter and high, high in sugar versus what they were years ago. I don't even drink you know, I don't drink apple juice, orange juice, any any of that kind of stuff anymore because of the amazing sugar content in it. And just as a as a side to that. You know, when we're thinking about the food that we eat, you were talking about the meat and hunting. So I've never been a hunter. I've never been hunting. I grew up in Los Angeles, not really a good a big hunting area. But my my roommate when I lived there. He He said that they attempted in his hometown. I think it was in like Missouri area or Minnesota. I don't remember it was one of the M's and he said that they stopped the hunting license for a couple years or something. They didn't want to have all the you know, the deer killed and hunted so they stopped it for a couple years and what what ended up happening was that the things that the population overgrowth of the animal them all created an issue not with the people or the humans, but they would get sick, they would eat too much of the of the food because there's too many of them, and then they would get sick, they would have all kinds of other issues. And then they ended up dying and disease was starting to spread because of the way in which they were dying. So they reinstated the hunting, in order to make sure that the population was down enough that they weren't having their own internal ecosystem issues. Right. So hunting isn't necessarily, to me, a cruel thing. It's not something that that I don't know if I'd be comfortable with it, just because I'm, it's not my, my nature. But or at least it's not something I've ever done. But just as a side to that, you know, it's like, we have this thing about being civilized, and being in a civilization, and how cruel it is to hunt. But it's supposedly not so cruel, at least for meat eaters, to treat our cows, the way that we've treated them to treat our chickens, the way that we've treated them to treat our livestock in general, putting them in situations where they need to be

like they're standing for their entire life in one spot eating food that's not natural to their diet, because when you see grain fed meat, cows don't eat grains, they eat grass, they walk around, they get exercise, they eat grass, that's what they do. And there's a natural cycle to it. That makes it so that they're they're very healthy. When they are in that natural cycle. As soon as you take them out of that natural cycle, you start giving them food, that they're not healthy, that's not healthy, and then you start pumping them full hormones to make them bigger to the point where they can't even hold their own weight in their legs because their muscles haven't been developed because they haven't been walking around. Okay, now, I'm talking to the audience right now, a lot, because I know that you know this. So I just want the audience to really understand what what's the cost, what is the cost of spending a little bit of money on really crappy meat that causes you to have diabetes, cancer, inflammation, heart disease, etc. Versus spending the little bit extra cost or extra money to get grass fed grass finished meat, or wild game that's been hunted, that's lived its life that's been able to roam and work the muscles so that the fat that they produce is the beautiful fat that's really healthy for you. So I'm just saying this because I want the audience to get I'm not an anti vegan anti vegetarian, I practiced veganism for a number of years vegetarian for a number of years raw food diet for a number of years. I'm not against that, and I get the the amazing empathy that they have for the animals that are being factory farmed. But factory farmed, need to go factory farms, whether it's agricultural, or meat, need to go. It's not necessary. How many millions and millions and millions of pounds of meat do we throw away every year? Because of it being diseased because of it being, you know, used in in ways that are unhealthy? You know? I mean, millions of pounds, well, how many cows Can we stop? You know, reading in this way? And how much room could we give them to move around if we stopped wasting it because we're factory farming it

Matthew Scarfo 1:04:33  

right. Now, granted, I don't think that cow hunting would be extremely exciting. They don't seem to move very fast. Right, right. You know, your cows, they don't seem to move very fast. They don't seem like they're very smart. They're not very camouflage. But, but your points well taken that you know, the reason why cows are given antibiotics is at least back in the middle of the 1900s when They wouldn't be in these factory farms. In New York City, they'd be in a warehouse that was elevated off the ground, they're put in this carousel, they're standing in their own excrement. And they're ill. And the only way that we can keep them alive is to put them on an antibiotic life support. Turns out that when they're on this antibiotic life support that they produce more meat. And now we have to give them hormones this way they produce milk, even when they're not calving. And even when they're not pregnant. That's not the same milk, chemically, and as it is, is if they were nursing a calf with it. So these animals are always under stress, they're always under stress, and they're stressed. That's a hormonal response. And that hormone is present in any of the meat that we eat. Now, not justifying or defending, hunting, but for that matter, the animals that live in the wild, live a happy life as God intended, they're out there doing what you know, with deer and squirrels and rabbits are meant to do. They're not being savagely ripped to pieces by predator animals. They're not, you know, being wounded and hopefully wounded and just left to die. I mean, as a hunter, and this isn't defensive, all hunters out there, we have a commitment. And it's a very strong commitment that it's supposed to be a swift and painless kill. And if it's not guaranteed to be a swift and painless, killed, and we'd let the animal go, and we don't take the shot. Now, there's a, you know, we know this very well, now that, you know, there's always a bad few in every big group. And I'm sure that hunting is no different. But an animal that was harvested from the wild that was eating what it would have wanted to eat that had the chance to raise calves and, and, and have relationships with other animals and experience life. It's a happier animal, it's better meat, we have chickens, actually, at our home, we've got about 30 of them. They're not meat chickens, they're egg chickens, they have an extremely large run an extremely large coop. And we do let them free range daily and the eggs that they produce, compared to the eggs that we get in the store, the shells are almost hard to crack on the animals that we have here. The skin inside of that shell is much thicker, oftentimes the yolk is a much brighter orange. And that's normal. That's not because of nutrients. That's really more from the bioflavonoids that are in the foods that they eat, you can make a chicken's yolk extremely orange if you gave it marigolds, but, but they eat hard shelled exoskeleton bugs and worms leaves and they get to pick what they eat. That's a healthier egg. That's a healthier animal. As opposed to the eggs that you get in the store, which it's about. It's about quantity, it's how many eggs can we get out, or how many things that look like an egg, can we sell as an egg and get our money for and it's it's much different if you can invest in or you've got the opportunity to invest in free reign jugs that are

that are sourced from your local community with people that have chickens, you're going to pay a little bit more for them. But you will absolutely notice a difference in taste, a difference in texture, there's a nutrient difference in them as well. It's just, it's just better as close as we can get back to how we were eating 150 years ago and longer is really how we should be eating now. And for many people, it's just a convenience. You know, they don't want to hunt but they'll they'll take a steak from a cow that had its next slit. While it was living in a cage its entire life. They'd rather pay an extra four bucks a steak to pay the middleman to handle the dirty work. But the fact is, is that that that animal was abused and mistreated, and it was it was born to die. It was important to breed it was important to do anything other than to provide for you meat. And once it was able to do that its card was pulled. So for those that are uncomfortable with hunting or eating hunted me, just just think about where you're getting your meat from, you've got better options, there are better options, plenty of mail order places that you can get them from where the animals are humanely treated. And the food is done without antibiotics or without hormones. And we're at a point now where if you look at a carton of milk, and the cow wasn't given antibiotics, there's a promote or given bovine growth hormone. There's a promotion for bovine growth hormone on that package. It says this animal was not given our b, g h. And then right underneath that there's been no significant difference between the milk procured from an animal that was given this hormone in the milk that was not, which is saying that it's okay to drink the milk that was that that's tainted with this stuff. But I don't know about that. I don't believe it. So it's just it's funny how they always get their jabs in and how, you know, the FDA is always It seems as though they have an ulterior motive and a different Yeah, they're in a different agenda, isn't it?

Ari Gronich 1:09:52  

Yeah, there's actually a lot of evidence that that, you know, you know, just the evidence of the graph like if you all you do was putting the health from 1950 in the health from 2020? Well, not 2020 it's been an odd year, you get the idea. And you just you just do the math on the graph from here. So the only disease and and issues that we had prior to the Industrial Revolution, agricultural revolution, I should say, was, we had disease of lack of nutrient. So scurvy, as you said, rickets, things like that. And then, you know, bacterial viral issues, but most of it bacterial and viral issues, did not cause any kind of chronic conditions. They were specific, they attacked people who had compromised immune systems, because the nutrition was was not, you know, readily available right there. So my question to you would be like, how can we scale a natural environment to feed the difference of population growth? Because I like solutions. And, and I like really good solutions. And instead of just talking about the problem, I want to have a solution oriented discussion about it, too. So if we were to scale, a natural world based on population growth, do you think that Well, let me let me just before I give my my possibilities, why don't you just tell yours, like, give me some solutions to this issue.

Matthew Scarfo 1:11:33  

So there's a lot of around here in New Jersey, and in the northeast is a lot of farming, I don't know how much farming goes on in LA, but there are essays, crop sharing. So crop sharing associations where you basically pay your dues, and you are entitled to a certain amount of, of organic, depending on the farm organic fruits and vegetables and tubers, and things like that. I think that the very, I think at its very core, it starts with community, and it starts with organization. So one, there needs to be a demand for it. In order for there to be a supply to fill that demand. You can't walk around looking for, you know, a solution looking for a problem, we've got the problem. And the problem is as inadequate food choices and inadequate nutrients in those food choices. So how do we fix it, I think organization is a very big thing. If you don't have a CSA in town, but you have a farm, it might be important to approach them and see if they'd be willing to do some sort of CSA. But But awareness also and taking the time to make sure that you pay attention. When you go into a store, it only takes you extra time, the first one or two times when you go in there to look at what the other options are that available to you maintaining the same habit patterns that we have. So if you always go to food, store a, take an extra 20 minutes and walk around and see what other options exist there. And if you can't buy it as it's already made, maybe perhaps you make it yourself back to the community part of it. Maybe you've got a neighbor who makes great bread and you make great casserole, we can start there. But it's once we realize that we we have way more time than we think that we do in order to make these things and create new habits in our daily life. And we also realize that our time is extremely limited and it's finite. The sooner we make the effort to make the effort, the better off that we're all going to be. So awareness is the key to it all whether it's moving better, sleeping, better breaking habits, creating new habits, we need to be aware of what the circumstances in the situation is now. So it's important to take an inventory and once we've got the inventory, I guess the low hanging fruit, any advancement would be progress. So if it's I'm going to eliminate sweetened drinks from my diet. I think that's probably one of the greatest things that you can do from a diet standpoint. just eliminate the the the added sugar that's huge. Maybe consulting with your doctor and seeing it for multivitamin might be right for you. Choosing a multivitamin doing your research and making sure that the compounds in that multivitamin are bioavailable and are taking from biological sources and not just dehydrated urine that's put into a capsule and like Here you go. So paying attention we all know that our health is important to us and if we don't know it now there's a there's a day and a time that's written in the book of life where the moment right before that you know that secondhand hits number it's supposed to your life will be extremely important to you and there are no redos. So every little effort we make now whether you're 15 2025 6080, it's going to have an exponential effect on your overall health and development as for the rest of your life, and where there's smoke, there's fire. So if you can create one small, easy habit, you can build upon that, to your point before, if you practice putting your shoes on, you do that for a day. And then the next day you put your shoes on, and you open the door, the next day, put your shoes on, you open the door, and you walk outside. As hard as it was to put your shoes on on day one. It's actually much easier on day five, and you still haven't even started running yet. It's just become part of that process. But it gives you something that you can build upon. And I think that that's really it. A lot of people look at their lifestyles and their diets and their exercise and try to figure out what's the one thing that they could do to fix the most things. And the answer to that is anything as small as it may be. It's just progress in that direction. You need to at least put your money on the table, throw a quarter into the pot and say I'm in for a quarter. I'm in for no iced tea at lunch today. I'm in for no iced tea at lunch tomorrow. And then next week, it's unsweetened iced tea and you know, something else later on in the day. But it's it's incremental, and things that seem insignificant, are not insignificant. If it plays out on a long enough timeline. Not long enough timeline is you know, from this moment until the rest until the last day of your life. Hopefully that's a very long time from now. Yeah,

Ari Gronich 1:16:28  

you know, it's interesting, my dad has had issues all his life that since I've known him, right. And his doctor told him that there's an in significant amount of gluten to make a difference in his body. And so I said to him, okay, well, let's test this out. Let's test this, this theory of the doctors out that there's an insignificant amount. So I said, What would happen, dad, if you were to cut gluten out of your diet? For a couple weeks? I said, Do you think you can handle that? Can you can you handle a couple weeks just to see what the difference in your body is? And all of a sudden the irritable bowel started to clear up. Okay, so what else did the doctor tell you was insignificant. That isn't insignificant, that you are allowed to eat just because you like it? And I know you like the flavor in that moment. But do you like the irritable bowel? Do you like I you know, it's like, it's like asking somebody? Do you like having diabetes? No, but I really like the wine and the and the alcohol and the sugar and the right. And the bread. Okay, but do you like the diabetes? Because you're gonna have to live with the diabetes long after the taste of that bread, the taste of that wine? The diabetes is going to be with you. Do you like having a memory? They're calling Alzheimer's and dementia now type three diabetes, pre diabetes, right? So do you like having a memory? Do you like the thoughts and the memories that you have of your life, because if you like them, then you'll stop doing the certain thing that you're doing that you like a little bit, but you like the memories more? which one is which one is more important? Which one is going to you know to you right now, if you're a smoker, and it's more important for you to smoke than to be able to breathe? All by all means you're making you're an adult, you're making a choice, right? But if you don't know that, that's your choice, because all you know, is the habit. Then think about it differently. Right. So I'm a hypnotherapist is one of the things that I've trained in, and we work with people who have habits. And, you know, the thing that I always started with was the question is the habit worth the consequence? Because in some cases, it is to that person. I'm gonna die anyway, some point, as you said earlier in this conversation, so why not die young and die? happy, right. Okay. But happy having the lung cancer and being in the hospital for the two years, that you're in the hospital and you like the radiation, you know, is the radiation worth it? Because that's that. So it may be living that you want to do, but are you going to kill yourself as soon as you get the cancer, you know,

Matthew Scarfo 1:19:54  

right. So I want to ask you now see your hypnotherapist. Am I right? In my understanding that in order to have somebody be in a suggestive state, that you're working really more with the theta brainwaves than you that's really the brainwave or that frequency. Forgive me if I'm not explaining it right but but you want to be in theta or you rather you want the person being hypnotized to to achieve that theta, brainwave state similar to sleep, or like creative play, like a child, that's that nebulous, kind of anything, and nothing exists all at once. And that's a malleable and moldable kind of mindset to be in.

Ari Gronich 1:20:38  

Right? You want to be in rubber brain. Yeah, I call it I call saying,

Matthew Scarfo 1:20:44  

okay. So there are because, and you've actually used it as an example, like with a smoker. I know, I know, people that one I know, people that smoked, you know, two packs of lucky strikes a day for 40 years, and, and died of, I don't know, a stroke, that nothing to do with respiratory issues, or atherosclerosis, or emphysema. lungs were crystal clear. And I know people that smoke that we're on oxygen, the doctor said, if you don't stop smoking, you're gonna die. And they didn't stop smoking. It's not that they didn't want to stop smoking, they just, they couldn't stop smoking, they couldn't find themselves in the identity of them, where reality existed where they weren't a smoker, that was they, they they attached such a strong identity to that practice, or that feeling or the sensations that despite, you know, knowing they're not going to get to see their grandchild be born, they continue to do this. And that's a guilt that, you know, I think we all probably going to end up passing but some guilt. But I think that when we get to that level, it becomes extremely difficult for people to change their experience of reality. Because they're so they're so habituated to be a different person, which is why I would call up a hypnotherapist and say, Hey, help me Stop, you know, stress eating or help me stop doing this, you would get me into rubber brain state. And then you know, from there, I can almost put the pieces, or you would help me put the pieces back where they need to go not where they kind of just fell in the first place. So there are there are, and I use this term lightly. In this case, meditation techniques and breathing techniques that help you kind of find that theta state, which, incidentally, is the same brain state where children up until the age of I think it's six or seven, reside in some children more than others. But that's that imaginative play, my three year old daughter is always in a state of play. She's always, you know, one of the Paw Patrol characters running around. And when I say always, I mean always say good morning, Amelia. She's like on baby rider, I'm not Amelia, and she's off. And but there comes a point in a child's development where it switches and they can no more, you know, they basically have to light that ship on fire and get on to a new one. Now, there are breathing techniques, and they're accessible, I'm sure you can find them if you look, and meditation techniques, same thing, I don't want to promote anybody. But there are ways that we can find that headspace and kind of reprogram it ourselves to a degree now I think that there's a certain significant advantage to having somebody walk me through that or or show me which rocks to step on in my journey and kind of reorganizing my brain. But there are some self guided ways that people can achieve that, that rubber brain state and maybe not achieve such a suggestive be so subject to suggestion without the help of somebody but but certainly, to the degree that they may be able to influence their behavior tomorrow and the next day and the next day by simply finding a clean slate and being able to observe a different consciousness if you will. So yeah, I go back to thinking about the person that that was a smoker until the day they died. And doctor said, this is it you know, you're they're gonna stop now or you're gonna die tomorrow. And, and I and I blame that person. But I also don't blame that person. And I know that we feel a lot about that with with food. There's a lot of stress eaters, there's a lot of people that are obese, and it's gotten to the point now where we've been taught to embrace unhealthy bodies, as opposed to finding a place of better health with our bodies. So you know, I think there's

Ari Gronich 1:24:36  

good so I don't want to shame somebody who's obese. I I've recently lost 100 absolutely not pounds, right. I've lost 147 pounds. The brain tumor I went on, I went on a massive like plan, not one that I recommend to anybody else, but because it included divorce and a lot of emotional release and a lot of like, hours and hours and hours and Amir crying and, and, like 40 day fast and then a 10 day water cleanse after the fast and then another fast after that. I mean it was like one after another I was like massively cleaning because the doctors have told me I'll never lose weight until the day I die. I mean, that was really the the prognosis that they gave me was you will no matter how much you exercise, no matter what you eat, you'll continually gain weight because of the hormone imbalances that are being affected. So I don't want to shame anybody. But what I want to do is educate them. It's not that it's not good for you to be fat, because you're a bad person because you're fat. It's not, right, it's not like you would shame somebody for having cancer, they have a disease. And the disease is caused by the system that we've created. Which is why my favorite saying is we made a shit up, we can make it up better. Because we made up the systems that we're living by, and the systems we're living by are causing you to be fat. And that doesn't make you an odd or evil or, you know, or or a person that lacks self control even your gut. We've we know this now we've studied this now for like five, six years, it's fairly new science about microbiome and gut and the control it has on our brain. And that's where I want to get to with that is your gut has more bacteria than cells are in your body. Have you, right, so if you have 7 trillion cells, and the gut bacteria is about 30 trillion, I don't know 150 trillion it, it's up there. They have more control over your brain than you do in some cases. And so they can smell a doughnut and start salivating. You can not even smell it, you can see a picture of a doughnut and start salivating because of the gut bacteria is going Ooh, sugar. Now, when you clean yourself out, when you detoxify yourself and clean yourself out and reproduce good microbiome or good, healthy gut bacteria. You look at a donut and it doesn't look good anymore. It didn't have anything to do with you controlling your mind, or programming your mind, it had to do with cleaning out your second mind, which is your gut. So that's where I think people don't want we don't want to shame anybody. We don't want to tell people they're bad. We don't want it's not your fault, is what I liked it. It's not your fault. This is sorry, society in the system that we've created, is designed to keep you and make you sick. And it's designed that way specifically, it has no other purpose than to keep you sick. The health care system is the exact same way. It's procedure based versus results based the incentive is to do more procedures, not to get a good result. Right. That's the that's the incentive system of the healthcare system. It's the same thing with agricultural, the incentive is to make more, make more bigger. So you can't it's no longer okay to have a small piece of corn, you got to have a big piece of corn, it's not okay to have some carrot, you got to have a huge carrot. Right? So we hybridize and we make them because the purpose that it you know, the purpose, try out new things and study stuff. But that doesn't mean that we should be eating the stuff they're trying out and studying.

Matthew Scarfo 1:29:06  

You know, so I want to I want to comment, though, if

Ari Gronich 1:29:09  

Yeah, absolutely.

Matthew Scarfo 1:29:12  

And I didn't mean to interrupt you, I apologize. And I just want to be clear, I wasn't demonizing or vilifying anybody that was overweight, nor was I shaming them. I mean, as a fitness professional in 20 years, I've helped, I've helped a lot of people achieve health in all different body sizes, relative to their, their comfort, their potential and their wishes. My point was simply that what we're doing and this is kind of to your point, too, is that we are in many ways, we're glorifying the habits that lead to illness. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with I mean even using the word overweight is is improper because over what weight over the weight that I choose for you, or over the weight that you choose for you what exactly is overweight. So But what it is, is that I think that we've gotten so comfortable with certain conditions, and we'll call them body shapes, which do predispose us to certain other morbidities. Right. So whether it's diabetes or type two diabetes, we know that that, that that's an overweight, we can cure that. Okay. And we can cure that in a very easy and simple way. Easier said than done. But but that's, that was really my point. So so by no means that I did I mean to, to install or even approach, a place where somebody would have taken offense to that, because that's certainly not the case. Not not whatsoever. Yeah, I do want to comment on the health care system. We don't we don't have a health care system in this country, we have a disease care system in this country. And because there's no money in the cure, there's only money in the treatment, that we need to keep people sick. And we need to keep people on well, because we, we can't prescribe marijuana for certain things. But I can prescribe to you a drug that Pfizer made that is identical to the compound in marijuana that's going to cure things, because I can't, I can't patent an organism, I can't patent a natural organism, which is, I'm not even bringing that up. But so they go about it their own way. And they make this artificial version of it, the synthetic version of it, that they can mark it and they can sell. So absolutely. It's not health care, it's disease care. And I think that, that doctors and physicians and thank God that they're here, thank God for the health care community. I mean, obviously, I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for medicine, and doctors practicing medicine and learning and continuing their education. But what we need to be careful of and it doctors do this in a more circumstantial way, I think, than than any of us do that we'll do it is that doctors don't necessarily only prescribe to cure, doctors also prescribe the illness. And and there's a tremendous amount of evidence that suggests that a doctor can make you sick by telling you that you're sick. And I've experienced this in my own way, we had talked about my lumbar spine earlier in our conversation. This is an old injury. I had gone to a surgeon about, I don't know, 12 years ago, had them look at the MRI, and it hurt. I couldn't get my head on top of it. It hurts so much in art and everything that I did. So he's looking at the MRI young guy, and I'm friendly with him. It's like Matt, I see your MRI, I can see where you're having pain. But I've seen MRIs that look far worse than this. And this isn't one of the worst ones that I've seen. If you're telling me that your condition is such that it causes great pain and you want to have the surgery, I see justification to have the surgery. But if you were to ask me as a doctor and a case study, and showed me the films without the person of the story and asked me if this person is a candidate for a fusion, I would tell you probably not. So it's completely up to you what we do here, I said, perfect. That's all I needed to know is it's still up to me. Fast forward to three years ago, back pain started to kind of seep its way back into my life and my daily routines. It was impacting my exercises and the things that I did, I went back to the same surgeon, obviously the condition in my spine and the discs had progressed, the first words out of his mouth were so Mr. scarfo, when are we going to schedule your fusion. And it was like, the lights went out. And somebody just cut the cut the power to the to the record, player, music stopped.

And I sat there and the moment after he said it, I felt it in a whole new way. Now maybe being a hypnotherapist this, this probably has some interesting tenants to it. I left his office, I said, You know what, let me go home and think about it. I walked out of his office walking down the stairs, and I was furious. I was pissed off. I called my wife on the phone, on the weight of the car. And I'm like that son of a. She's like what happened? I was like the first words out of his mouth. Were Matt, when are we going to schedule your surgery? My back hasn't hurt more now anymore in my life than it has right now. It hurts more now than it did when I walked into the office. She's like, so what are you going to do? I'm like, I don't know, you're gonna get the surgery. I said, I hope not. It took me months to Little by little, when I would feel it. I wouldn't let it stick. I would just kind of let it come and let it go and carry on with my life really trying to put into practice? Where is that red line of my comfort or my discomfort? When is it actually a problem? Or when am I just perceiving it as being a nuisance? And it took me about a year to peel that back and get back to where I was now. There's no question that now the condition has progressed even more just because of the wear and tear and the things that I do. There's no question that if he were to look at it, he would he would agree. But the fact that he had suggested that to me and a power of suggestion made that reality. So in my head, and I almost had to forget about the person that I was when I heard that and start over and ask myself, okay, if I didn't know anything about my history if I didn't know anything about my past, or my injury history, and I woke up right now in this body, but I think that my back needed a surgery? And the answer was no. Would I be confident that I could run two or three, four or five miles? The answer is, yeah, I think I could. So I had to forget everything that I thought I knew, and, and relearn it all from day one, as a, you know, 3738 year old guy that had this history of injury, but I had to forget that history. And I promised myself that I was going to relearn it. So it's, it's a tough spot for a doctor because doctors first do no harm. But they don't i don't think that it's it's conscious in them in their, in the forefront of their minds that the things that they say, mean something, and if it is, if it confirms right, confirmation bias, if it confirms something that I kind of thought, boom, this was this was it, this was exactly what I needed to hear. So I knew that I was right. If it doesn't confirm what, what I had thought, it forces me to question what it is, and then reevaluate what it is, and then maybe agree with the professional that that sees it knows it and has experienced with it. Now, granted, we're not talking about heart issues, and kidney disease and other things that will manifest quite quickly. But in terms of the the mechanics of things, only, I know what that feels like and where the problem lies. So it's important that we take the advice of the professionals that are around us, but we also temper that with some of our own common sense and experiment with it. So they they treat disease, they do not do health care. I think that the ground, the the health care workers that are working in the trenches, the nurses, the nurses, the radiologists, phlebotomist, everybody else, and even the doctors all have the greatest intentions to help. But I don't think that we are all sitting at the same table and having a conversation with Who is your treatment really benefiting? Who is your prognosis really benefiting? Is it benefiting me over the long term? Is it a sufficient diagnosis? Or is it a proper diagnosis? And also, is it a sufficient treatment or a proper treatment? So I think that we're up against probably the same size machine that we were up against 25 years ago, when when the tobacco industry was trying to convince us that tobacco didn't kill people, and that they had a reasonable obligation to not put any additives in their cigarettes that would cause illness or harm. And they and they promised they swore up and down to Congress that that that wasn't the case, that it's a safe product, and we knew better. Right. And I think that we know that now, it just seems that you know, for for the pharmaceutical companies seem to seem to have a monopoly right now. And we just have to wait for enough people to come disenfranchise that, you know, the right people involved start investigating it. But yeah, but I, I agree with what you said,

Ari Gronich 1:38:21  

Yeah, you know, you're here's the, we will, you know, this has been a very good conversation, and I completely appreciate you and and that I don't like to talk badly about majority of doctors, because they're just like me, only their training is different than my training. They've been trained in medicine and disease control. And I've been trained in how to create an optimal healthy body. And I did you know, and I went the route I went, because the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me for so long, that I had to, you know, go find out for myself what was wrong. But so I don't like talking about the system is, to me, it's the system, it's the money in the system. So the agricultural system is now linked to the pharmaceutical system. And pharma. Linked is Bayer and Monsanto just connected. They've become a conglomerate. So you have the largest agro business in the world that controls I think it's about 80 to 90% of the World Food Market. And you have bear who is the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. Both of them have agendas, to make their companies bigger and more have more control. And so if you have the food that makes you sick, and you have the pills, that Your sickness, you've got a perpetual money machine,

And so who is the biggest donor at any university that teaches medical school, it's the pharmaceutical companies, they're the biggest donor, they are in there by the sixth month. They are, they have already been on your kids buts about the medicine, about medical medicine about pharmaceuticals. And so, if by the sixth month in school, in medical school, you're already been indoctrinated to that way of thinking that's all you're going to be trained in. So that's where I encourage people to, to really interview their doctor versus just going to a doctor that somebody recommends, interview them find out what it is that they believe find out what it is, is that their training gives them authority over and most people don't do that. But what is it that that they have authority over? Do they have any outside training in any other specialties or any other modalities other than just the medicine, because a well rounded, you know, thinker is better than an unwell, unwell rounded thinker. And so that's just my suggestion for people. So we got to end this, unfortunately, I could, I could probably talk to you for another 10 hours. But I have another another interview coming up in a few minutes. So one of the audience three, I know you've already done it a number of times during the conversation, but three, just to sum up actionable, doable things that they can do to create a new tomorrow today for themselves.

Matthew Scarfo 1:41:58  

Sure, so three things, one, create the habit of breathing through your nose and not through your mouth, use your mouth for eating, not for breathing. For all the reasons that I mentioned earlier. Second one is move deliberately. So whatever space you're occupying, or whatever space you are moving to occupy, whether it's during exercise, or standing up from a restful situation and a couch and walking to your fridge, feel your body move through space, part of the reason why we feel like time moves so quickly anymore is because we're the things that we look forward to are happening in the future as opposed to happening right now we need to be present. So when you're exercising and you're doing a benchpress, it's important not to just bang that weight up off your chest. But as you lower it, feel the tensions as they accumulate in the different parts of your body that are responsible for governing that movement. Feel your triceps lengthen under tension, as you've lower that weight, feel them short and under tension as you press that weight up off of your chest, everything be in your body be in the moment and be present. And then the third thing you know, I'm going to go off of what your last comment was. And that would be to interview your doctor, I certainly didn't mean to. And if that was the impression that I gave lump all doctors into this big grand category, I want to expand on it just a little bit that in the sense that I'm a runner, and I'm an exerciser, I make sure that my doctor is also a runner and an exerciser and shares the most important parts of me with them, because they can sympathize, they can empathize. As a runner of my life, I have a foot injury, my doctor is going to tell me as a runner, how I should manage that, not just as a patient, and they don't know what running even feels like. They don't know what it means to me. They don't know those things. Now, that's not going to change. They're not going to change their advice, necessarily, but it'll help them. It'll help me feel like they're talking to me and not at me. So I think when picking your healthcare team, or your personal health team, it's important for you to find people that share interests with you, but just have a greater level of experience or education in their respective field, whether it's human movement science, or, or nutrition science, or doctors or so on. So breathe through your nose, be present in your body, be present in the moment, whenever you move and everything that you do. And then also make sure that your healthcare team is a team of people that you trust that you can rely on and that shared the same recreational interests as you this way, the advice that they give you is contextual, and not just general and vague.

Ari Gronich 1:44:38  

Awesome. And how can people get ahold of you if they want to work with you?

Matthew Scarfo 1:44:43  

Sure. So I just started a blog online, Mattscarfo.com. It's where I seems to be a catch all for all of the content that I produce and that I'm a part of, you can easily reach me there. LinkedIn, you can find me Matt scarfo, just about everywhere, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, ad scarfo.com. So even if you're not interested in having me help you will work with you in any way. I'm always interested in having great conversations with interesting people. And I try to learn as much as I can from everybody that I meet. So even though it might not be a monetary arbitrage, it could certainly be a, an intellectual one.

Ari Gronich 1:45:20  

Absolutely. I've enjoyed our intellectual arbitrage today. And to doing it again, and, you know, working with you maybe in the future, so creating some win wins collaborations, because I think, if we do that, we can really, you know, as we come together, we create momentum and movement, and we can move mountains when we when we work together. So, anyway, thank you so much. I am Ari Gronich, and this has been another episode of create a new tomorrow where we are helping people create their new tomorrow today. Thank you so much for being here, and I look forward to seeing you and hearing you at the next one. Remember to Like, Comment, and review. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world. Go to the website, create a new tomorrow.com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you just for checking it out and look forward to seeing you take the lead and joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.

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Matthew Scarfo 0:00  

I got into the fitness industry about 21 years ago, almost as a lost soul. I was a I didn't do very well in school I dropped out of high school, the only thing I really ever always fell back on was fitness and exercise. And when I was younger, it was more about aesthetics and strength, as opposed to performance and functionality, though. One day I was working out in my parents basement, and my mother came downstairs and said, Listen, you don't do anything you dropped out of high school. You're really not racking up any points here. So why don't you pursue a career in fitness and personal training since it's just what you love to do? And you do it anyway. Why don't you invest some time and some effort into figuring that out. So I took her advice. I became a personal trainer shortly thereafter, got my first job as a personal trainer at a local mom and pop a big gym.

Hi, I am Here with Jonathan Pritchard. He Founder of the Hellstrom Group; an international consulting company working with clients like BP, State Farm, United Airlines, and more. Focusing mainly on applied psychology in business, communication, and life. here is the Highlights of the episode hope you enjoy. Listen to the full episode in your favorite podcast app.

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learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

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CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ari Gronich 0:07  

Welcome back to create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich and with me today and I have to change my voice for him because he is the magician Jonathan Pritchard. Been on stage with Chris Angel. He's been on stage in war times and good times. He's traveled the world learning the psychology and the experiential mindset of imagination design theory of mind. Jonathan Prichard, tell us who you are.

jonathan pritchard 0:44  

Hi, hey, glad to be here, man. Thanks for the rockin intro. Just always have to say I was backstage with Chris Angel. I haven't been on stage with him. I was strictly behind the scenes. I got that face for radio kind of thing going on. So yeah. Basically, my my background is I grew up doing magic tricks. When I was a teenager, I got interested in mind reading tricks. And that was my area of specialty. I met my mentor James Randi, who recently passed away. He at the time had a million dollar challenge to anybody who claimed to be genuinely psychic or have supernatural powers like that. Well, you show us then you get a million dollars. And I handled applications and designed testing protocol for that million dollar challenge. And that's when I saw every way that people were trying to scam their way to the money and figured I can do these scams better than they can. And then that's how my showbiz career started.

Ari Gronich 1:45  

So I want you to unpack for me one thing, I saw it on America's Got Talent, some magician, he was touching Simon's hand, or was it Simon's or I don't know, he was touching either Simon's or the other guy's hand. And then the other person's hand rate rose, because they were mentally connected with their psychic. So I want to unpack that because it always intrigues me. Not when you can pull stuff out of your jacket in weird ways that you can't see, but when are your sleeves or what, but when, when you can touch somebody's body and somebody else raises their hand.

jonathan pritchard 2:27  

All I can say about that is I am really good friends for more than a decade, with the guy who came up with that trick. So I will pass along your sentiments to him. But that is a trade secret that if you haven't spent a lifetime of self denial, alone in a room to learn those skills and techniques, you you don't have the experience and background to to handle those kinds of secrets. So I'm I'm really saving you from yourself there.

Ari Gronich 2:59  

Alright, so you're not the man in the black mask. That's I was just checking to see if you were the man in the black mask.

jonathan pritchard 3:05  

But know that given what that's Yeah, the the masked magician is is to be a really fascinating story. That's kind of insider baseball, trade secret stuff. But it's it's actually really cool. Because the the guy who came up with that idea, really loves magic. And the explanations for Season One, are really wacky. They're they're functional, but they're not actually plausible. They weren't actual secrets. He dreamt up most of the explanations, but the producers don't have experience in the magic world. So they don't know it's a fake explanation. So they were exposing imaginary secrets, which to me is a hilarious meta con. And it gets famous than they want to do season two, but it's kinda like, well, I'm out of ideas. So let's, let's call this off. They fired him. And that's the thing with a mask. Anybody could wear it. So now, season two and three, they were actually revealing the real work. But yeah, it's kind of when you when you try to control a beast you conjure, it's probably going to destroy you.

Ari Gronich 4:20  

Yeah, so, you know, that gets me to my favorite kinds of topics, which is, how is it that the audience, the people, the citizenry are so under the spell of the magician's of the systems that we're in, because psychologically speaking, it doesn't make sense to me. I can see it Why can't you see it? Right? It's like is my is my way of, of looking at it like I can see that big agriculture. Is poisoning our food? Why can't you see that? And why is it? Why is it okay? That you see it? If you see it? And don't care like Why? What is it about the psychology, the mindset of people, that allows them to be so duped out of doing actions that are in their own self interest that are in their own betterment?

jonathan pritchard 5:30  

That's a big question. Let me let me try to approach it with with this. Do you have your cell phone next to you? Yeah. All right, would you put it face down? In front of you? Yep. Right, because this, this is kind of an experiment to see how your brain works. And kind of based on the numbers, we look at our phones, at least a couple 100 times a day, right? If, if not more, whether you've got an iPhone or an Android, this is the same no matter what on your lock screen, we all see exactly the same thing, which is the time. So without looking at anything else, what exact time is it?

Ari Gronich 6:21  

I don't know, because I haven't been looking at I wasn't looking at it

jonathan pritchard 6:25  

exactly what you were expecting to see, and your fundamental values of what you're looking for prioritizes, what your mind will pay attention to you were, you weren't consciously aware of the time, but it was in your visual field. So you perceived it, but you weren't aware of it, because of what information you were looking for means that you're going to filter out everything that isn't your values.

Ari Gronich 7:00  

Obviously, you can't learn somebody's lesson, and nobody's trying to do that. But I can educate somebody on work, life educates them. And it's not about me, it's about what is in the world that people are seeing. So people see their family and friends dying of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. And they'll still eat massive amounts of sugar. and not worry about, you know, like not care not have a thought that says maybe the action that I'm taking is, uh, is causing the result that I'm getting. Right? So yes, it's them doing their own Kung Fu, but I'm asking what it is in their own mind. Not anything that I have to say. They're the one experiencing it, they got diabetes, and they're, you know, drinking the soda and eating the sugar. What is it about the mind that makes it so that they are or people in general are so willing to go against their own self interest?

jonathan pritchard 8:10  

Got it. There's a lot going on, that weaves together to reinforce that behavior. There's a lot that could be going on, too. So that's a difficult thing to nail down as well. But a big part of a lot of our behavior is that it serves some purpose and is some kind of strategy for need fulfillment. So in some way, their choices are the best strategies, they have to feel important to feel reassured to feel safe to feel connected, to feel valued. Even though it might be a bad strategy is still might be effective. And that's the best way that they know how to fulfill those needs that they've got.

Ari Gronich 9:12  

Yeah, just look at the history of that person. It's interesting. You know, that that explains why kids a lot are so willing to you know, eat fast food. I mean, I have kids that they're young. Oh, and you know, my my stepdaughters boyfriend said to me the other day because I asked him why he would be using the microwave, even though he knows that it's not good for him to use the microwave. He said, I'm young. I'm 20 it doesn't affect me right now. I'll be I'll worry about it when it affects me. Right. He's like, I'm like, Oh, really. So a small effect or a big effect. Right. An imperceptible effect is still an effect an effect You know, beyond, right, but I was I grew up I was a, I call myself a canary in the coal mine. Because I brain tumor when I was really young and, and symptoms of it that we never knew that it was there until I was 24. symptoms started when I was seven. So I knew that things that I did affected how I felt, right. And so I had a very conscious perception of that at a very young age that the actions that I'm taking, are causing a consequence to, to those actions. And it was immediate, right? It's not like, you know, you have a small gluten intolerance, that doesn't, that causes a minor inflammatory response, not a big one that causes massive stomach pain. Mine was more, you know, things were pretty evident to me. So I was very well trained to become interested in the actions and effects and actions and effects and down the line butterfly effect and things like that. So the question becomes, if the consequence is down the line? How do we get the consequence in their mind? Or how does somebody get the consequence in their mind that their path is leading that way? Because you can't tell a kid that when they're at, they're going to be bent over like this, if they keep looking at the phone all day like this, right? They're gonna be looking at their shoes, they're gonna go, I don't care. I'm straight up right now. Right? So I'm just trying to get like, how do we get the mind to work in a way that is for our benefit, instead of for the benefit of our habits and fears?

jonathan pritchard 12:03  

What's the saying the best way to move a river is at its source, the earlier you can change the greater effect it'll have over time. That's just how it works. An idiot can't learn from their own mistakes. A normal person will learn from their own mistakes, a genius can learn from other people's mistakes. Most normal people require multiple exposures to their own bad choices, before they're ever even aware of a choice being made in the first place. And the lesson will continue showing up at louder and louder levels, until it's at the limit of where they can be aware of it. Because the same level of thinking that creates that level of problems isn't going to change. So they can move, they can change environments. But that same decision making structure is still in place. So you'll make the best decisions you could make, which will create those level of problems that you're used to dealing with. So the consequences just keep showing up again and again until that person goes, oh, maybe I'm the problem here. And that sometimes can take a lifetime. 

Ari Gronich 13:27  

Alrighty. Cool. Thank you so much for being here. It's been a great conversation. I know that the audience has gotten a lot of good, you know, just enjoying the conversation, but a lot of good actionable things that they can do to create their new tomorrow today. And so I really appreciate you, you being here. And thank you for listening. Thank you for participating. Remember to review and subscribe and rate the show, comment as you will because we love hearing the comments and being able to interact with you as well. So this has been another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. Thank you so much for being here, Jonathan, and good night.

Hi, I am Here with Jonathan Pritchard. He Founder of the Hellstrom Group; an international consulting company working with clients like BP, State Farm, United Airlines, and more. Focusing mainly on applied psychology in business, communication, and life. here is the full episode hope you enjoy. Listen in your favorite podcast app.

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE OF JONATHAN FOR MORE INFO!

https://www.jonathanpritchard.guide/

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ari Gronich 0:01  

Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I did not get results, they did not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system want to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are joining me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gronich and this is create a new tomorrow podcast.

Welcome back to create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich and with me today, and I have to change my voice for him because he is the magician Jonathan Pritchard. Been on stage with Chris Angel. He's been on stage in war times and good times. He's traveled the world learning the psychology and the experiential mindset of imagination design theory of mind. Jonathan Prichard, tell us who you are.

jonathan pritchard 1:42  

Hi, hey, glad to be here, man. Thanks for the rockin intro. I just always have to say I was backstage with Chris Angel. I haven't been on stage with him. I was strictly behind the scenes. I got that face for radio kind of thing going on. So yeah. Basically, my my background is I grew up doing magic tricks. When I was a teenager, I got interested in mind reading tricks. And that was my area of specialty. I met my mentor James Randi, who recently passed away, he at the time had a million dollar challenge to anybody who claimed to be genuinely psychic or have supernatural powers like that. Well, you show us then you get a million dollars. And I handled applications and designed testing protocol for that million dollar challenge. And that's when I saw every way that people were trying to scam their way to the money and figured I can do these scams better than they can. And then that's how my showbiz career started. So from there, I have traveled the world entertain the troops overseas, and consulted for some of those big names we'd all recognize. And I used the psychology and skills and principles to make Austin our long show. But I eventually realized, you know, it's nice distracting people from their problems for an hour. But these principles I use onstage can be used offstage to help solve those problems permanently so that you get more interesting problems. Like Alright, I like that process. And from there expanded out to the coaching and speaking and training and, and all that kind of giving people a peek behind the curtain. Look at how your brain works. So that's why I've been able to consult with fortune 500 clients and a whole bunch of training, stuff like that. But it all centers around just being fascinated by how people think.

Ari Gronich 3:45  

So I want you to unpack for me one thing. I saw it on America's Got Talent, some magician, he was touching Simon's hand, or was it Simon's or I don't know, he was touching either Simon's or the other guy's hand. And then the other person's hand rate rose, because they were mentally connected with their psychic. So I want to unpack that because it always intrigues me. Not when you can pull stuff out of your jacket in weird ways that you can't see. But when are your sleeves or what? But when when you can touch somebody's body and somebody else raises their hand.

jonathan pritchard 4:27  

All I can say about that is I am really good friends for more than a decade with the guy who came up with that trick. So I will pass along your sentiments to him. That is a trade secret that if you haven't spent a lifetime of self denial, alone in a room to learn those skills and techniques, you you don't have the experience and background to to handle those kinds of secrets. So I'm I'm really saving you from yourself there.

Ari Gronich 4:59  

Alright, so you're not The man in the black mask, I was just checking to see if you were the man in the black mass.

jonathan pritchard 5:05  

But know that given what that's Yeah, the the masked magician is is to be a really fascinating story. That's kind of insider baseball trade secret stuff. But it's, it's actually really cool because the the guy who came up with that idea really loves magic. And the explanations for Season One, are really wacky. They're, they're functional, but they're not actually plausible. They weren't actual secrets, he drempt up most of the explanations, but the producers don't have experience in the magic world. So they don't know it's a fake explanation. So they were exposing imaginary secrets, which to me is a hilarious meta con. And it gets famous than they want to do season two, but it's kinda like, well, I'm out of ideas. So let's, let's call this off. They fired him. And that's the thing with a mask. Anybody could wear it. So now, season two and three, they were actually revealing the real work. But yeah, it's kind of when you when you try to control a beast you conjure, it's probably going to destroy you.

Ari Gronich 6:20  

Yeah, so you know, that gets me to my favorite kinds of topics, which is, how is it that the audience, the people, the citizenry are? So under the spell of the magician's of the systems that we're in? Because psychologically speaking, it doesn't make sense to me? I can see it, why can't you see it? Right? It's like, is my is my way of looking at it. Like, I can see that big agriculture is poisoning our food. Why can't you see that? And why is it? Why is it okay? That you see it? If you see it? And don't care? Like why? What is it about the psychology, the mindset of people, that allows them to be so duped out of doing actions that are in their own self interest that are in their own betterment?

jonathan pritchard 7:30  

That's a big question. Let me let me try to approach it with with this. Do you have your cell phone next to you? Yeah. All right, would you put it face down? In front of you? Yeah. Right. Because this, this is kind of an experiment to see how your brain works. And kind of based on the numbers, we look at our phones, at least a couple 100 times a day, right? if not more, and you're often going to your main home screen to open up different apps and that kind of thing. So at least 50 ish times of those 200 times you're looking at your phone, you're seeing your home screen. And there are apps, there are widgets, there's a clock somewhere on there, who who cares, right? I want you to think about what icon or widget would be in the upper left hand corner of your main home screen on your phone that you've already seen 20 times today. Okay, so I need to think about what that is. And in just a moment, but not quite yet. Because there's a little bit of process to this. In just a moment. I'm going to turn it over, lighted up. unlock your phone. Check to see if you get it right or wrong. Lock your phone and put it facedown. Okay, well, you got to do so go for it. Got it. Right. Not open, not opening it, though.

Well, you open up you unlocked it. But did you get the icon? Correct?

Ari Gronich 9:17  

I got the icon in the top left. Correct.

jonathan pritchard 9:20  

Outstanding. All right. So you're a very small percentage of the population. That actually gets it correct. But here's another question. Whether you've got an iPhone or an Android, this is the same no matter what on your lock screen. We all see exactly the same thing, which is the time. So without looking at anything else. What exact time is it?

Ari Gronich 9:45  

I don't know because I haven't been looking at I wasn't looking at it.

jonathan pritchard 9:49  

Exactly what you were expecting to see and your fundamental values of what you're looking for. prioritizes What your mind will pay attention to you were, you weren't consciously aware of the time, but it was in your visual field. So you perceived it, but you weren't aware of it, because of what information you were looking for means that you're going to filter out everything that isn't your values. So the values you hold, are your pre cognitive filter, to weed out everything that doesn't match what it is you're expecting to see. And that is a fundamental human process, our brains run off about the same amount of electricity that your your refrigerator light runs on. So you've got to have some shortcuts to be able to navigate this confusing thing called reality. So there are all sorts of assumptions and shortcuts and processes in place to help you not be frozen by having to evaluate every single detail that you could possibly be aware of. So within the context of a bigger issue, like agriculture, or whatever, within the context of your previous experience, you have logical reasons for the assumptions and beliefs that you have that build your filters for your future experiences, that will ensure that only the experiences that reinforce those beliefs are let through the gates. So any kind of knowledge or experience that could challenge those filters are kind of kept out before you're ever even capable of being consciously aware of them, because they passed you by 10 seconds ago, and you weren't aware of it in the first place. So if you're not aware of something, you can't use it, you can't leverage it, you can't apply it. And your mind actively is filtering out everything that doesn't align with what you're looking for.

Ari Gronich 12:20  

Okay, so I'm going to give you a scenario. You're your smoker. You go into a gas station. You see the cigarettes. You're an ex smoker. You still see the cigarettes. You're a non smoker. When I was a non smoker, I didn't see the cigarettes at all. When I started smoking I was, you know, young at the time, mind you. And when I stopped smoking, I still would see the cigarettes. When I started to identify myself as a non smoker, somebody who does not, I don't smoke, I'm not a smoker. I stopped seeing the cigarettes. I'd still go up to the counter. But I would see maybe, you know, if I liked chocolate bars, I'd see the chocolate bar instead of the, you know, the cigarettes. So that would be like a selective eyesight based on preconceived notions, right. So how do you go through life watching your family members and your friends and stuff have cancer and diabetes and heart disease and stuff and not have it be on top of your mind that you're seeing people sick, you're experiencing sick and not associating that sick with any of the habits, behaviors or situations in front of you.

jonathan pritchard 14:04  

You are the only person who can build your Kung Fu. I can't learn your Kung Fu for you. And trying to learn your Kung Fu for you is the fastest way to drive myself crazy. Because that's not how reality works. So you can do your due diligence, you can voice your concerns, you can try to express your viewpoint. It's just really difficult for you to force learning onto somebody. And that is kind of a fundamental communication issue. Really, which is why can't you see it my way? It is so perfectly clear to me. Why in the world Can't you see it my way. And in one perspective, your domain Finding that they become the mind reader to see the world through your mind. And they haven't spent a lifetime studying human psychology and communication theory. So expecting them to be able to do these things that are nearly superhuman is trying to measure them with your yardstick never going to happen, what you can do is try to put it in, in terms that they can relate to, so that you could at least feel understood, but you can't learn their lesson for them.

Ari Gronich 15:36  

Obviously, you can't learn somebody's lesson, and nobody's trying to do that. But I can educate somebody on work, life educates them, and it's not about me, it's about what is in the world that people are seeing. So people see their family and friends dying of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. And they'll still eat massive amounts of sugar, and not worry about, you know, like not care not have a thought that says, maybe the action that I'm taking is a is causing the result that I'm getting. Right? So yes, it's them doing their own Kung Fu, but I'm asking what it is in their own mind. Not anything that I have to say. They're the one experiencing it, they got diabetes, and they're, you know, drinking the soda and eating the sugar. What is it about the mind that makes it so that they are or people in general are so willing to go against their own self interest? Got it.

jonathan pritchard 16:48  

There's a lot going on, that weaves together to reinforce that behavior. There's a lot that could be going on, too. So that's a difficult thing to nail down as well. But a big part of a lot of our behavior is that it serves some purpose, and is some kind of strategy for need fulfillment. So in some way, their choices are the best strategies, they have to feel important to feel reassured to feel safe to feel connected, to feel valued. Even though it might be a bad strategy is still might be effective. And that's the best way that they know how to fulfill those needs that they've got. So in a way, if they solved those problems, what you're saying is that you're going to remove their strategies to scratch those itches, and to have those needs filled. So you can't really get rid of those strategies, you have to be able to find better strategies to achieve the same outcomes. So that's, that's at the heart of habit changes in in behavioral change, is recognizing what is this doing for me? What am I really getting out of this? And are there better behaviors that will serve me more effectively with fewer downsides. Another angle to that is, most people are using really bad strategies to make change. So the entirely logically consistent belief is that change is impossible. Or change is really difficult, when it's really a measure of an awful strategy that is ineffective to begin with. So then, if everything I do doesn't work, well, then I guess there's nothing that can work. So there's that angle of it. There's another angle, which is sometimes you don't see the negative impact right away. And it's, it's kind of one of those Buddhist things of, you're not punished for your anger, you're punished by your anger. Just the very nature of being angry is itself a damaging experience. That kind of idea. So if, if you're not at that level of discernment and awareness of the impact of your emotional state, your choices it's very difficult to recognize this behavior is immediately bad for me. But most People wouldn't be able to see the effects until it's much, much later. And by then, it's very difficult to tie what action created this outcome. And without that immediate feedback, there's, there's no consequence. I'm doing all these things, and I'm getting away scot free. And it's like, if you're training a dog, you're training a puppy, it needs immediate feedback that that was the right thing to do reinforce that, that was the wrong thing to do. Do not reinforce that. But our cause and effect timeline is from our perception. So distant in time. It's really difficult to relate the consequences to those actions we took last week, six months ago, two years ago. And therefore it gives us the false impression that our actions don't have consequences. And then when the consequences do come do you're going, why did this happen to me? What? Why your universe? This is so out of left field, there's no reason this should happen to me. Sure. Okay. Try selling that somewhere else. I'm not buying it.

Ari Gronich 21:26  

Yeah, just look at the history of that person. It's interesting. You know, that explains why kids a lot are so willing to you know, eat fast food. I mean, I have kids that they're young. Oh, and, you know, my, my stepdaughters boyfriend said to me the other day, because I asked him why he would be using the microwave, even though he knows that it's not good for him to use the microwave. He's like, I'm young. I'm 20. It doesn't affect me right now. I'll be I'll worry about it when it affects me. Right? He's like, I'm like, Oh, really. So a small effect or a big effect. Right, an imperceptible effect is still an effect of, you know, beyond, right. But I was, I grew up I was a, I call myself a canary in the coal mine. Because I brain tumor when I was really young, and, and symptoms of it that we never knew that it was there until I was 24. symptoms started when I was seven. So I knew that things that I did affected how I felt, right. And so I had a very conscious perception of that at a very young age that the actions that I'm taking, are causing a consequence to, to those actions. And it was immediate, right? It's not like, you know, you have a small gluten intolerance. That doesn't, that causes a minor inflammatory response, not a big one that causes massive stomach pain. Mine was more, you know, things were pretty evident to me. So I was very well trained to become interested in the actions and effects and actions and effects and down the line butterfly effect and things like that. So the question becomes, if the consequence is down the line, how do we get the consequence in their mind? Or how does somebody get the consequence in their mind that their path is leading that way? Because you can't tell a kid that when they're at, they're going to be bent over like this. If they keep looking at the phone all day like this, right? They're gonna be looking at their shoes, they're gonna go, I don't care. I'm straight up right now. Right? So I'm just trying to get like, how do we get the mind to work in a way that is for our benefit instead of for the benefit of our habits and fears?

jonathan pritchard 24:16  

What's the saying the best way to move a river is at its source. The earlier you can change the greater effect it'll have over time. That's just how it works. In idiot can't learn from their own mistakes. A normal person will learn from their own mistakes, a genius can learn from other people's mistakes. Most normal people require multiple exposures to their own bad choices before they're ever even aware of a choice being made in the first place. And the lesson will continue showing up at louder and louder Levels until it's at the limit of where they can be aware of it. Because the same level of thinking that creates that level of problems isn't going to change. So they can move, they can change environments. But that same decision making structure is still in place. So you'll make the best decisions you could make, which will create those level of problems that you're used to dealing with. So the consequences just keep showing up again and again until that person goes, oh, maybe I'm the problem here. And that, that sometimes can take a lifetime to come to

Ari Gronich 25:42  

right. So that sounds a little bit like the horse I know is better than the horse I don't know, kind of thing or

jonathan pritchard 25:49  

it's, it's that beautiful BF Skinner is is a fascinating character to me. He was a behavioral psychologist and an operant conditioning. So we've got Pavlovian conditioning, which is very straightforward. Ring Bell salivate, okay, it's now the bell ringing is associated with food, therefore, the food trigger happens with the bell. Okay, very straightforward. BF Skinner took that a little farther. And what he did was, this part's a bummer, he would starve pigeons to like 75% of their body weight, so they're very food motivated. Okay, he puts them in a little cage box, and there's a lever that the bird could pack. And then food drops out. Very simple, classical conditioning setup here, where if bird hits lever, then food drops out. And very quickly, the bird fingers spat out, kind of go, oh, if I want food, I hit the lever. Okay, my, my input is required for food output. Awesome, I got it. This box is the limit of experience for this bird. The birds context. The whole thing is the box. That's it. bf Skinner's context is the laboratory. And Skinner changes the logic of the box from the lever to an interval of time set to random. So it might be five minutes, this time, it might be 30 seconds next time, totally random. To drop out the food. The food is no longer connected to the to the lever. The bird lacks the contextual awareness to realize that that change has been made. So within the context, the birds experience, food drops out. It's logical belief is I needed to do something for that food to drop out because I've seen that happen 100 times already. So I guess now whatever it was I was just doing is the thing that I need to do to get the food to drop out which at that point was looking over my right shoulder. Okay, so let me let me try that out. I'm going to try this hypothesis looks over my right shoulder and nothing happens. Mm, okay, maybe I didn't do it hard enough. This time, boom, I look over my right shoulder and food drops out. See I knew it. I knew it was looking over my shoulder. You now have a superstitious pigeon. Straight up superstitious pigeon. From its experience, that is a completely logical belief system that is in alignment with its reality. But it's it's not real. But it makes sense. So the bird can't think outside the context of its experience. So back to the question you asked. It's that a person who doesn't expose themselves to new ideas to other perspectives will always be limited to their pre existing structure of assumptions, that the only logical outcome will always be the same belief and decision making. Those are the decisions you make that are your best strategies that will always result in the kinds of problems that you're used to dealing with. Because the problems you're used to dealing with are a result of the quality and strategy of your thinking. So without changing that fundamental structure, you can't help but end up at the same conclusions, the same problems. And those problems are there as a as just a blaring, like foghorn of, Hey, this is the natural consequence of being you right now. If you want better problems, you've got to change the way you think about your opportunities, your relationships, reality, the only thing that can change is your relationship with reality. SATs when you get cooler problems, that's when things change. But that's why you're not going to level up when you're making the same choices. And like, I've had that happen my own life, the best idea I've got. It keeps playing out over two to three years. But I wind up in exactly the same positions, exactly the same problems. It's just that the actors are different, but it's exactly the same script. I'm the only common denominator here. So what am I doing to create these experiences? Okay.

Ari Gronich 31:22  

So that's, as I said, that sounds a lot like, you know, the saying, Why am I always attracting the same thing in relationship? or Why am I always attracting the same experience in business? Why, you know, why does this happen to me over and over again? Right, I hear that question a lot. I know that, you know, for me, in business there, there's always been a lot of ups and downs, because my experience was, when my parents, when I was young, my parents got into business with somebody, and he ended up stealing their entire business and everything from them, to where we had to move out of my house, we had to the house, my dad actually had built, we had, you know, we were left with nothing and, and had to rebuild. And so I learned, people are unreliable, they will steal for you, if they have an opportunity, they'll take advantage of you if you're nice. Right? So I have all, you know, it was like all these sets of beliefs that would then later on in life, it didn't happen. When I wasn't in business, it happened only when I went into business, but later in life, I start, you know, I recreated those things. Right. So then the question becomes, how does one when they get that awareness that that's happening, then what are some of the techniques they can use to then shift that perspective? Like some actual tangible techniques, if you if you have any, but to shift the so that, okay, I recognize that pattern. I don't like the pattern, but I don't know how to stop the pattern. So how do we how do we get to that stop the pattern and then to the shift into a new, more healthy or what, you know, cleaner, kind of Yeah,

jonathan pritchard 33:29  

it goes back to the cause and effect, that is such a difficult thing to do, because that pattern might happen six months earlier, before its consequences are loud enough for you to be able to hear them. And by then it's difficult to recognize the state you were in six months ago that led to the choices that led to the six months later consequences. So it's, it's really difficult. This is not easy stuff. It can be simple. Once you understand that it's fairly direct, and it makes sense. But it doesn't mean it's easy. Another thing is to recognize that these are the beliefs, behaviors and systems of decision making, that you've had for a lifetime. And you've had that long to get really good at thinking that way. Thinking is a skill being you is a skill. making the choices that feel right is a skill. And the more you make those choices, the more natural those choices feel. And that's a big part of why you keep making them. Because this is clearly the best way to make this choice. This is clearly my best option. This is the one that feels right. feels right because it's the one you're most familiar with the one you're best at doing. That's why it's the best. It kind of takes a genius to be able to wake yourself up. It's very, very useful to have a mentor, or some external third party person who isn't living in the same context as you are. So that they can recognize those patterns before you do to be able to give you those pattern interrupts of, Hey, why are you doing it that way? What do you mean? I'm, I'm doing it that way. I'm not doing it that way. Yeah, you're you're actually right in the middle of doing it that way. Look, exactly what you're doing. Oh, my god, you're right. I, I am Wait, what? How did I get here what's happening, right kind of wake you up in the middle of that, that natural process. And a big part of it is recognizing that changing your behavior is not going to feel natural. Every instinct you have will tell you that this is wrong. And that this is not the right way to do things. And it will feel like you're dying is basically it. Because what's dying are those ideas that are living in the energy of of your imagination in mind, that are feeding off your decision energy that keeps them alive. So those ideas are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that you don't kill them. But that's what happens when you start making different choices. You're starting to give that energy to new ideas, the old ideas are not going to go quietly into the night. So just recognize that doing a better strategy. At first is going to feel more uncomfortable and unfamiliar than riding a unicycle and juggling fire. Just know that that's part of the process.

Ari Gronich 37:17  

That sounds like fun, actually, I'm a Burning Man guy. So I like juggling fire and

jonathan pritchard 37:23  

a reason I have the the fire juggling tattoo.

Ari Gronich 37:27  

Absolutely. So So then the question becomes to change your habits. Sometimes we need to change our circumstances, our environment and the people we're around, right? Because we're around people who are like we were or like we are but not like we want to be necessarily. So the uncomfortability that people tend to have when it when it when they're changing or when somebody is changing around them. And the pullback though, the the crab box, you know, like we always are pulling people down instead of lifting them up. So you've got to find people who are where you want to go. Right? And that way you have those mentors and those people who can point out to you and say, so the question becomes at that point, why would those people want to be around you? Because they have to, they have to decide, am I going to mentor this person, I'm going to, you know, beyond our current culture of everybody's a coach and pay me and I'll help you, right? Everybody's, I'm a mentor. But if you have to pay me 50,000 to mentor you. It used to be that was just like, the way that we grew up in the world was we would you know, somebody above would take somebody below and say, Here, come with me. And let's go do this together. Let me teach you let me train you. Let me see. But and, you know, you get the idea that in this current world that we live in, it's difficult to find somebody who's at that level that says, you know, like Andrew Carnegie saying to Napoleon Hill, I will mentor you, you just, you know, go right about it, learn about it. Let's do this. Right. So how to that kind of? Well, you heard the question.

jonathan pritchard 39:41  

Yeah, there are a couple very, very subtle distinctions that that I think are important to, to nail down. Which is you're right, the crab bucket mentality and people dragging you down because you're useful reassurance. They're to say, like, whatever they're getting out of you being the you You are now, you'll be taking that from them by changing your situation. So there's that to be aware of the danger. The caution I want to pin down is, wherever you go, there you are. And if you make the mistake of believing, changing your environment alone, is what's needed for you to be different you that will quickly turn back into the you, you're used to, because you brought you with you wherever you went, right. So wherever it is, you go very soon, way faster than you think you are making the choices to recreate exactly the same dynamic you ran away from in the first place. So a change of environment is a useful pattern interrupt to hiccup, so that you can take stock of my natural next instinct is to do this. And that way, the same patterns are there, the environments different. So that gives you a chance to recognize those patterns. So that's why it's useful for environment changes. But changing your environment doesn't change you. You bring yourself along with you. So there, that's just kind of the one of the distinctions I want to make, which is, you can't run away, you're not going to go to a new city and start all over again. And things will be different this time. No, six months later, you'll be right back in the same same spot. So the next detail is about well, how in the world do you get a mentor, especially nowadays, the internet and that kind of a thing. Having an in person mentor is awesome. Having direct relationships with them is awesome. But books are the world's best thinkers throughout all written history that you have to learn from. And it's getting mind reading lessons from the world's most effective people. So they have generously distilled a lifetime's worth of valuable insight into a couple of 100 pages that you can read in eight hours. So that same 50,000 hour $50,000, you would need to pay to sit down with Mark Cuban or whoever, for eight hours, you could buy it for five bucks on on Kindle. So there's that angle to it. The other angle is why in the world, with some world class achiever want to hang out with a loser like me. That is a very logical belief, that is a very reasonable thing to keep you away from making those connections. totally makes sense. Doesn't have to be real. But it's logical. And that's the real thorny part of this. All the stuff that's gonna derail you. totally makes sense. It feels right. It's it's logical. Like, yeah, you just built a great case for why this will never happen. But look at that, dude, he shows you that it doesn't have to happen, it can go a different way. So I like to kind of explain that idea. In the context of I just did my mind reading show 70 minute migrating show comedy bringing people up on stage in front of a roomful of people. That's a very uncomfortable situation for a volunteer to be in. But I helped them feel like a million bucks. I set them up for success. I can calm them down, build that rapport, that trust very quickly, the whole whole nine yards. So you do the show. Standing ovation. Okay,

I've had some of those to definitely had some of those. So, afterwards, there's going to be three types of people that come talk to me. The first one is going to say, How did you do that trick? Tell me that trick with the hands and touching the hands. How does that work? And then I say it's a mystery. Oh, man, it's woof. Isn't that a good trick? Huh? That's that's level of their interest. The second person will go You know, I've always been interested in mind reading and mentalism and the psychology of humans and, and I'm just super fascinated about it. And then I go Okay, what what books have you read? Like, oh, I, I don't even know where to start. I go, Okay, well, here's a good book to check out. Here's a good book to check out. Here's a good resource, your library 790 8.3 or 790 3.8, whatever, whatever that number is, is the Dewey Decimal number for magic and in games. That's it at libraries. It's sitting right there at your county library. been there for decades, same books since 1950s. Alright, so gave them their lead. The third person will go man, that was a great show loved it. I've been interested in mentalism. And I've read this book. And this trick in that book is my favorite, but I just can't get it to work right? Then I go, I'm sorry, everybody. autograph line is done. I'm going to have to hang out this person, because try to shut me up. Walking that person through. Okay, so your thumb is a little like it's two millimeters away from the perfect position. Now, put it right here. It doesn't that feel like oh, yeah, I can do the thing. So there are a lot of people who demand the answers, go find them yourself. A lot of people want answers, here's where to find them. Here are the answers I've already been searching for, and been trying. And here, here, the frustrations I've had. I'm going to mentor that third person, that third person has already demonstrated that my time is not going to be wasted, by virtue of them already doing what it is that they need to do to win. So coaches want to coach winners. They don't want to they don't want to coach losers, right? You just don't. So make yourself valuable, demonstrate that you're coachable. Don't Don't argue with the person who's already been doing this for 30 years, and can do this in their sleep. So fight the urge to argue with the person who is provably better at doing these things than you are. Because I'm not interested in debating. I'm not interested in arguing. I was a I was competitive debater in high school and college, through all of it. I was a competitive debater, that was the fun time for me to do that. I'm no longer interested in that I'm now interested in creating and building and giving other people the tools and techniques and strategies to build success for themselves. That's what I'm interested in. If you're interested in arguing with me about that's not the way I see it, great, then I don't need to mentor you. And a lot of people make themselves unmaintainable by by fighting to keep their old ways of losing that they will they will give everything they have to hold on to the way they've always done it. And why in the world? Am I going to care more than they do about their problems? So no. So do what you can with what you got. And just do that day in day out. And that's how you show that, hey, I will actually take to heart what you're going to teach me and I want to implement what it is you can show me. The other side of that equation, though the cautionary side is nobody. And I mean, no human being can think outside the box. When somebody says we need to think outside the box, they don't know what they're talking about. Because we're all pigeons in that cage.

The only thing you can do is crawl out of your box into somebody else's slightly larger box. The instant you start applying their strategies and advice, you begin building their box. So if the person giving you advice is living a life you wouldn't trade for. ignore it. That's the final litmus test of would I give up everything I have to live the life that persons living. If not, you can completely ignore the advice they're trying to give you because the moment you start listening to it and In making those decisions that are in alignment with what they would do, you're going to start getting the same consequences they do, whether that's getting fabulously rich and wealthy, maybe that's getting rich and wealthy and a horrible home life and their wife hates them. consequences are positive and negative. They're just the natural byproduct of the decisions you make. So make sure that the consequences are worth what they're going to cost you, which is everything that you have right now.

Ari Gronich 50:33  

Yeah, I call I call it I talked about that in my book with the butterfly effect. I call it nuanced thinking and and, you know, following a path, it's the same thing and operational planning is, what are the actions and then what are the consequences to the consequences to the consequences to the consequences of the one action that was all the way back over here. And, and sometimes it's good, I tell my son, actually, you know, like, there's consequences to everything. If you're late for, you know, get in your car, when it's parked at a parking meter, you're going to get a ticket, if you don't do your homework, it's, you're, you're going to have a consequence, if you do your homework, you're going to have that consequence of learning and growing and changing. And I try to give him that kind of a philosophy. He's seven years old, but he is so smart, so he can understand the words that I'm saying and what I'm telling him. And, and yeah, I find I find that to be really fascinating. What I also find fascinating is how few people even recognize the consequence to their action, long after the action is done, or right away, you know, and what you said earlier is is true that sometimes that consequence comes much later. And it's harder to put the start point of the origin with with the answer. But, you know, Jim Rohn, used to say, you can, you know, you plan, like, say a five year plan. And you say, here's the goal, here's where I'm going. And then within five years, you get there, you're going to get somewhere in five years, you can either have go to a well designed location, or an undesigned location. Right. And so the the consequences of your actions today are five years down the road, it's, it's a way so just backtrack, the goal backtrack, what you want to do. I also like the the conversation that you're talking about needs because everything every action is a response to get a fundamental need met. And I don't think myself included, that majority of people actually write a needs list for anything that they do specifically. So whether it's a relationship, they might say, here's a trait list I want in the person, but not a needless, what is it that I need from a relationship? What is it that I need? From my business? What is it the lifestyle, the need of the lifestyle I want to live What's the need of the health I want to have? And, and and bringing it back to that is that would be a fundamental way to shift the actions is to recognize Okay, here are my fundamental needs which may or may not shift at some point as you grow older and and so on. But it's an interesting thing. I have you know, you brought up things like mentalist you know as far as a profession What do you think of the TV show mentalist or psych or even lied to me? You know, where, where they're talking about body language and what what intrigues me is the amount of information they can gather from the body language and so forth. Do you have any techniques or skills that help somebody become more observant of their surroundings become more and it kind of goes back to that phone thing that you talked about earlier when you had me look at the phone to become that hyper focused where you can see the nuance of an environment?

jonathan pritchard 54:40  

Yeah, I I am not being trite. I am being ultra literal here, which is they are able to notice so much because they read the script. And I mean, to say Sat. The body language narrative is a useful tool to instill the belief that I can do things that you can't. It's predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of reality, though. If you were to press any of these body language experts, they the the Balian mode, kind of like, Oh, I'm going to advance this. And then when you attack me, I'm going to retreat to my mode. Right? That process is they claim to be a body language expert. And here's, I know, because here's how human body language works. that argument, though, is founded on the belief that there are universal displays of human emotion, that a smile is always a smile. A frown is always a frown. In that kind of a thing. There are zero, universally applicable human displays of emotion. They are always contextually relevant. Always. So there's, there's no one behavior, that always means the same thing. To put it simply, that fundamentally undermines the entire structure that these body language experts build their, their life on. Right? So then they retreat to Well, I don't I'm not saying that, Jonathan, I mean, that I'm just really good at reading the situation. So why are you taking a two second clip from a three hour conversation? And then espousing that I have a rocky relationship with my my dad? Like, it's it's all hogwash. It's made up. It's, it's modern day phonology. It's tarot cards. It's Barnum statements. So I fundamentally disagree with a lot of body language experts, and the entire structure of their business. Having said that, within the context of a performance, a mind reading show, I'll use that as a useful narrative. To give my audience something to hold on to that explains how I'm able to know these things about somebody when the real method is I stole the information somehow. So it's a useful narrative, to give your mind an explanation. And once your mind has an explanation, it stops looking for the explanation.

Ari Gronich 58:09  

Right? You're placated.

jonathan pritchard 58:10  

Yes, you go, I need an answer. Here you go. Oh, I have an answer. Now, my worlds okay. He waved his hand and snapped his fingers. That's how it worked. It sounds stupid when it when you say it out loud in your life. I know that can't be what it is. But your non conscious mind, the mind that filters out the experience, the one that operates off of a lifetime's worth of Yes, how it works, totally buys it totally buys it. So that that's my cautionary tale, which is to say, be aware of those assumptions, that you know what's going on? Because a little knowledge is really dangerous.

Ari Gronich 58:56  

Right? So the one I hear a lot is your arms are crossed, right? Mm hmm. Yep. Closed to this conversation because your arms are crossed. And so you're closing off and saying no, yeah. Yeah. You know, I could be cold. I again, like Like you said, I could be cold and you know, I could be cold. I could be just like resting on on my belly, you know, place to put my hands I can be as you are, you know, just comfortable and leaning on the, you know,

jonathan pritchard 59:29  

yes. My chair doesn't have armrests. I gotta,

Ari Gronich 59:32  

yeah, I don't have them. If I were to read body language. If I were to go by this script, so to speak, I'd say you're closed off right now. If I were to go by my intuition, I'd say he's relaxed. He's open in the conversation. He's having a good time. He's making eye contact. You know, even with the camera, not with me, but you know, I mean, yeah, that's, that's an nuanced way of looking at it versus a prescribed way of looking at it. Right?

jonathan pritchard 1:00:05  

Right. The Yeah, the the, the way that it works, where you can build it to help you is number of times you've been in this certain kind of dynamic. I've been in my show more than 1000 times. And I have 100 times 1000 data points of picking somebody who's actively scowling. And so within the American context, within the smaller context of my show, within the even smaller context of my audience, in the smaller, smaller context of that audience member, over the years, when I pick somebody who looks like that, my show tends to go wrong. It tends to go very poorly, because 10 times out of 10, I go, you know what, Jonathan, maybe you're just reading too much into this. Maybe he's just cold baby, he's, so let me bring him up. And then every time I bring that kind of person up, that they are not a good experience for the show. And as a steward of the experience for my audience, I'm doing my audience a disservice by picking that person again and again. So what what you can do is look for the baseline of what that person's normal is, then your pattern recognition will be real good at being able to notice deviations from that, that normal. So that's why it's really difficult for a magician or a mentalist to successfully execute a trick with their best friend or family members, or people that spend all day every day you go, I am the great Jonathan Pritchard from and they're like, Jonathan, shut up, I changed your diapers, man, like just stop it and be like, they they know the affectation, right? From the everyday me. So if there's some sort of tick, or weirdness or tension in my shoulder, because I'm uncomfortable, because I'm about to do the tricky move, they will be able to feel that difference. Even if they're not able to point out, Hey, your your right shoulder came up as you were dealing, you need to be aware of that, they'll still be able to go there was something weird. I don't know what it was. But that didn't. I didn't feel like magic that felt like you were trying to do something. And then if I can pull it off with a family member, I know that that skill is is locked down cold, we go all right now there's no chance an audience member is going to be able to perceive that difference from my baseline. All right.

Ari Gronich 1:03:16  

Right. So I used to do, I'm a hypnotist certified clinical hypnotist, apparently hypnotherapist and I did take the stage course and how to do stage hypnosis. And I'm, I'm pretty good at at picking the right person that is going to be inducible. And, and stuff for fast. Induction Right. Which, by the way, a fast induction is not as fast as it looks, because everything that they said every bit of what they did before they did the induction was the induction. So just as a cautionary tale. But what I was I you know, I've not ever been able to do is somebody who knew me for more than a year. I could never get if, if I if I knew them for more than a year. They knew me they weren't they were they were just wanting to prove that I couldn't do it. Right. Versus versus the opposite. So I totally get that. That's kind of like, you know, the horse, you know, again, the horse you know versus the horse you don't know. When you don't know something. You can be surprised by it. When you know something and absolute. There's nothing to surprise you. So being in the place of allowing a surprise is the place of being curious. And the place of being curious is wanting to have knowledge that you do not currently have or Wanting to extend the knowledge that you do currently have, right? So 

jonathan pritchard 1:05:04  

absolutely.

Ari Gronich 1:05:05  

So in your line of work, you know, like the things that you do on a daily basis besides the practice besides the stage performing? What is it that you what is like, if there were three things or four things that you can point to that you tell all of your clients that you say to all of the people that are kind of recurring themes? What are those recurring themes that, that you absolutely, you know, that are absolute for you.

jonathan pritchard 1:05:45  

Learn Kung Fu. Really, all of what we're talking about is concrete. And physics level true. And you learn that the first time you get punched in the face. I don't care what your mindset is, I don't care what your vision board is, I don't care what your motivation was, I don't care how you were feeling. I don't care what you wanted. I don't care what you intended to do. None of that matters, because you just got punched in the face. And you realize that none of that stopped it from happening. And your instructor who loves you enough to punch you in the face, is teaching you something extraordinarily valuable, which is none of that other stuff matters. If you can't even get out of the way of what's happening to you. So learning to control your base layer, your physical layer of reality is step one ground level for being able to affect any other kind of change at more and more abstract levels. So, learn how to stand, learn how to be balanced, learn how to move in a coordinated fashion, in a disciplined system way. The process of developing that skill set is kind of a holographic or fractal or multi level application, however you want to put it, the process of learning that level of it will be the context that you can now apply to your emotions, or your thoughts, or your breath, or your energy or your time. All those other more abstract levels are more difficult to manage, than learning to stand up, right? So having a physical discipline is your most valuable context to explore all these, what sound like abstract ideas, but really, their fundamental truths that you can prove to yourself by virtue of learning how to not get punched in the face. So everybody goes, Oh, Jonathan, what should I do about this? I'm feeling this way or that and then you can always bring it back down to if somebody were trying to punch you in the face in this way. What would you do about it? Well, they shouldn't be punching me in the face. Well, they are. You're fighting reality right? Now. You're refusing to accept what is real. And only by perceiving what is real? Can you do anything about it? So that doesn't matter right now. They're punching you in the face? What are you going to do about it? Well, I don't want them to punch me in the face. That's a logical thing to feel. And that's not going to stop them from punching you in the face. Their fist is coming at you. It's even closer now. Because you've wasted time wondering why they're doing it, and how it makes you feel and why they should or should not be doing this. And none of that stuff matters. What do you do about it? So that, to me is the world's fastest way to cut through all the chicanery and the the whatnot, that's holding you back from doing things differently than how you've always wanted to do them. Because in that context, you can try out those strategies. That usually takes six months to play out. It can take half a second, and then you try it again, and it still doesn't work. Then you try it again, and it still doesn't work. You try it again. And it works even worse that time. And you're proving to yourself, oh, my best strategies are actually pretty awful. So maybe I should think about doing things differently. Okay, teach, what do I do in this situation? All right, well, you got to make sure you maintain your balance, you got to coordinate your structure, you have to move in a United Way with intention. That's the only way that you can interact with reality and survive contact. So, so legit, have some sort of physical practice, and self defense, or martial arts or whatever, is the most fundamental rock solid foundation that you can build from. Nice, yeah,

Ari Gronich 1:10:51  

I've been a martial artist since I was five. I used to work with the PAL program in Santa Monica. And just kind of funny story is, we were we were training. The pal program is the police activities league. And we were training a bunch of kids that were part of the program. So we teach them school stuff, and then, you know, mentor them on school, and then we would teach them martial arts. And for that privilege, we got to do some adult play with the cops. So we, you know, gun takeaway weapons works and things like that. And I was, I was training one of the the newer adults in, in the class, in self defense. And basically, he was doing a punch to the face, but he would do an angle, so he wouldn't be coming towards my face. Right. So he was not allowing me to block or to do anything, because I could just stand there and I would never get hit. So

jonathan pritchard 1:12:07  

do me a favor, right?

Ari Gronich 1:12:08  

I would tell him, you got to hit me in the chin, you got to go straight for my chin was straight for my chin straight for my chin. And eventually, he did. And he hit me square on the chin. And I was like, I just said, Good. Now you're getting it. Right. He didn't want to work with me again. I want him in the gym. But I'm like, you have to do the movement towards the person in a way that's reality based so that they can in reality go to the defense of themselves. Right. So anyway, it's just an interesting story that goes along with what you're saying. And the chicanery. And as we heard people say, the mishegoss, which means meetings, the craziness of it all. You know, it is actually a really good thing for people to do is train their body to be in a battle. I mean, the benefit is that the majority of people who are who learn martial arts will never get in a fight ever, in their life. Because the aura that they put off the the positioning of their body that the way that they stand and walk just says to people, not the person for me to mess with, right. So it's not about enjoying the fight. It's about the persona, the personality. You know, I tell people, I think we need to get people back into a draft of some sort, whether it's military draft, or civil service, some kind of Peace Corps, it should be a mandatory thing to serve the country and create that kind of level of care for the community and society around you. Right. But also, the discipline of the military is is a good aspect to learn as long as you're not losing yourself in the process.You know, 

yeah, you've got to have a system that sets you free, rather than a system that creates a robot clone of somebody else.

Right. And what I loved about Bruce Lee was move like water, you know, like water is you move like water, you flow like what? No set discipline, all of them mix together and then put into action. weigh that anything that comes at him, he's ready for because he didn't train to be rigid, he trained to flow like water. And so you know, good in your mind as well in your body. But what you were saying, you know true that in many cases it starts in the body, the body creates the environment for the mind to thrive. If you have an unhealthy body, you're going to have probably an unhealthy mind or at least a less healthy, less optimized mind. So what would you say? If somebody was at your show? And they start heckling you and telling your tricks from from the audience? What is you know, like, that would be to me a punch in the face, right? So how, how would you because I want you to kind of demonstrate a punch in the fight face and you know, a swerve kung fu is like Aikido is kind of like, use their energy. Right? So how would you How would you deal with that? I wanted to liven it up a little bit.

jonathan pritchard 1:16:19  

Yeah. One of my kind of Wing Chun Kung Fu, sayings comes to mind, which is the best self defense is to not be their second best is learn Kung Fu. In a way, I just don't show up for that. So at a more fundamental level, I don't get hecklers anymore. Because I don't design my show in a way that encourages them. And I, I, it might look like a punch to somebody else. It might look like a heckler to somebody else. I just see them trying to hug me real good kind of reframe of what's happening. So very rarely do I ever get somebody who's genuinely heckling. Most of the time, if it's a show stopping event, and it's derailing the experience, it's mainly because that person drank too much. And they lacked the context to understand their way of interacting is not helping everybody have a good time. So there's that part of it. And I want to meet that person with love. And that's another angle to the martial arts thing, which is, you don't have to be angry at your opponent. And it doesn't even have to be an opponent. Sometimes the people you love the most are the closest with the most opportunity to hurt you. And you can't slam their head into the wall, in self defense. So you've got to be really skillful at maintaining your boundaries and your safety, while maintaining the physical well being and emotional well being and intellectual well being of the people you care about. So your natural instinct doesn't have to be annihilate this person. Most performers, and especially comedians, that's their deal, man. I had a heckler last night and I got killed it man, I just shut them down. I'm bares them in front of their wife. It was awesome. Right? Like that's their go to is to meet that interaction with destruction. It's that's not my jam. I've designed my my show, my two day workshops, my keynotes, everything essentially follows this same formula, which is right up front. Greet the audience with warmth, and genuine love and appreciation. Because I know how I make a living is an absolute gift. It's an honor, and a privilege. And the moment I take that for granted, it's all over. So I can't ever be a diva. I am supremely appreciative of the way I get to live my life and have built it. So there's that. So when I walk out on stage, that's the vibe. I playfully accentuate the Yes, yes. You don't know it yet. But I deserved every bit of that applause Thank you, thank you, that kind of thing. They kind of go, okay, he he's got a sense of humor about it, but he's confident I get it. So that's a good establishing line. thin, I do things that the audience can't do. Just right up front. All right, everybody. Let's try this thing together. And then I can do it. Nobody else can. And without saying it explicitly, I say Look, I can do things you can't. And the audience gets it because they just watched it happen. They go against you could do things I can't All right. He's, he's the guy that can do things. I get it. Okay. So that gets communicated right up front. And I need to fulfill that expectation that the audience has. We're gonna see a guy who could do things I can't. That's what they want to see happen, right? Like, that's almost literally what they're paying money for, is to see a guy read minds, I can't remind. So this dude says he could read minds. He better reads minds, man, right. So you have to do what they're expecting to fulfill that checkbox. All right, I got my money's worth. I came to see my greeting show. What do you just did some cool stuff. All right. Everything from here is gravy. I want that done as quickly as possible. Because then I shift to Yeah, yeah, it all makes sense that I can do these things. Because I've spent a lifetime learning to do them. I learned to juggle fire when I was 13 years old hammer nails at my nose when I was 15. Eat fire when I was 18. I've got a whole laundry list of weird skills. And none of that is unexpected. Because I'm the dude on stage here. To me, it's more interesting. To help you guys see what you can do. The whole rest of the show is me being the facilitator of making the audience members, the stars of the show. They are the agents of action. They're the person that predicts the future. They're the person that that does everything. So everything I do is focused on highlighting them as the important person. And now I'm kind of like the talk show host. Sure. Everybody knows this Johnny Carson show. Everybody knows it's Jay Leno. Everybody knows it's Letterman. Those are the names. But they're interesting because their guests, and you watch the show, because the interesting conversations they have. So now who's going to heckle me. Because I'm just there to make their friend look good. And now if there is a heckler, or somebody who is interacting in a not okay way within the confines of this performance, I am now in a position to stick up for my friend who's on stage. And I go, Listen, man, this is not easy to do. This is a scary spot to be in. And my friend right here is doing a phenomenal job. And I'm not going to let you steal this moment from them. So if you can't respect that this person is doing something very difficult, right? Now, I'm going to ask you to leave. Because we don't do that here. And then they go, Oh, I didn't know I was being that kind of an idiot. And you're like you were being that kind of an idiot. So I'm giving you this one opportunity, explicitly outlining what behavior I expect from you, which is to sit down, shut up, and clap when it's time. That is the appropriate way to interact with the show right now. That kind of thing, right? The number of times that I've had to do that infinitesimal compared to the number of times I haven't had to do that. But when you structure your show that way, it's no longer Look at me because I'm the cool man. And now it's a contest of wills. That's just inviting the alpha male in the audience who has the identity of I'm the most interesting person in this room. Right, like, and now that Jonathan guy is making me feel threatened, because my girlfriend is watching him instead of me. And now I need to lash out and I need to attack. Oh, it's fake. You're a phony, right? That's the root of that heckling, is threatening that person's identity as whatever. So I don't come out claiming to be the thing that would threaten them. And suddenly that behavior doesn't happen.

Ari Gronich 1:24:14  

So let's translate that as as kind of the last bit of cool advice. let's translate that to business and life. Right? So you have a template when you go on stage. People don't have a template to live their life, but they can make one. So give us some some hints on how somebody can make a better template. Well, I'm not going to qualify it with better or worse but can make a template for their life. That creates audience participation versus the kind of heckling and interaction right? So lifes participation going with your template versus being a thorn in the template.

jonathan pritchard 1:25:10  

It's cliche, but for a reason it works. Which is to be more interested in other people than being interesting. And that shows up in the Jim Rohn. The everybody who recognize this recognizes this always taps into the same thing, which is that if you try to make yourself great, you're gonna have a real hard time, and nobody's going to want to be around you. If you make other people feel great, and be great, you're going to get everything you've ever wanted in life. I've been able to travel the world I everything I've ever wanted to do, I've gotten to do, because for 70 minutes, I can make random strangers feel like a million bucks. That's it. That's really it, is to get out of your own head, figure out how you can use your skills, your time, and your energy and imagination. To help as many people as possible in a way that's mutually beneficial. I'm not saying to set yourself on fire for somebody else to keep them warm. It's not at your expense. It's what kind of Win Win dynamics Can you recognize, to offer to people that will make their life better. That's why I love the marketplace so much. That's why I love the free exchange of value for value. Because the better you get at helping more people more quickly, the more you're rewarded. So in a way, a free market, ultimately rewards selflessness for your own selfish needs. So the The more you focus on how you can serve the market, the more wealthy you'll get in terms of relationships, time, energy, money, whatever your preferred resource is, the only way you're going to get more of it, is by being of better service to other people. And the longer you stay hung up on what's this getting for me? Or how can this person make me feel important? Yeah, good luck. You're not gonna get very far.

Ari Gronich 1:27:47  

That's awesome. I like I'm gonna end and the ended on that note of being in service to others. And, Jonathan, how can people get ahold of you if they wanted to, to connect?

jonathan pritchard 1:28:02  

The best place to go is Jonathanpritchard.me/social, if you want to just kind of see the laundry list of irons in the fires that I've got. That's kind of my my central hub. So Jonathan pritchard.me is the main website where I put all my projects of my speaking training, painting, crypto stuff, virtual reality, artworks, augmented reality, artworks, just anything and everything lives on that hub. I'm most active on Twitter, at real j Pritchard. That's my handle. For now. I changed every once in a while. So that's why I go to the hub, then you'll be able to find all my different social channels. But Twitter is where I'm most active. I like to say it's, it's a lot like being locked in a car with me for 15 hours, and whatever idea comes up. I'll say it out loud. I say it out loud on Twitter.

Ari Gronich 1:29:02  

Alrighty, cool. Thank you so much for being here. It's been a great conversation. I know that the audience has gotten a lot of good, you know, just enjoying the conversation, but a lot of good actionable things that they can do to create their new tomorrow today. And so I really appreciate you, you being here. And thank you for listening. Thank you for participating. Remember to review and subscribe and rate the show, comment as you will because we love hearing the comments and being able to interact with you as well. So this has been another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. Thank you so much for being here, Jonathan, and good night. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. If you'd like to take this information Are there and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world. Go to the website, create a new tomorrow.com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you just for checking it out and look forward to seeing you take the leap and joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.

Hi, I am Here with Jonathan Pritchard. He Founder of the Hellstrom Group; an international consulting company working with clients like BP, State Farm, United Airlines, and more. Focusing mainly on applied psychology in business, communication, and life. Hear it live on Monday at 6 Am for the full episode in your favorite podcast app.

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Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

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jonathan pritchard 0:00  

So the entirely logically consistent belief is that change is impossible. Or change is really difficult when it's really a measure of an awful strategy that is ineffective to begin with. So then if everything I do doesn't work, well then I guess there's nothing that can work. So there's that angle of it. There's another angle, which is sometimes you don't see the negative impact right away.

Hi, I am here with Norman Plotkin, He is Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a medical emphasis as well as cancer wellness and recovery as an integrative medicine modality. Also certified for hypnotherapy in pre- and post-surgery, pain management, PTSD, smoking cessation, sleep, stress, anxiety and more. How I can help you: Cancer Recovery; Surgery Preparation, Smoking Addiction, Drug Free, Pain Free, Emotional Release, PTSD Therapy. here is the Highlights of the episode hope you enjoy. Listen to the full episode in your favorite podcast app.

CHECK THIS WEBSITE BY NORMAN PLOTKIN TO LEARN MORE!

https://normanplotkin.com/

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learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

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https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=+++++++++++++

Ari Gronich 0:07  

Welcome back, everybody. This is Ari Gronich with create a new tomorrow. We are here today with Norman Plotkin. He is a hypnotherapist and author a coach. He's been a health committee consultant for the California Legislature representing California physicians, his own private lobbying firms and nation states. And this is something I really want to talk to him about, because I love government so much, as you all know. So I just wanted to put that out there that he has been one of the evil ones. Maybe we'll see lobbying in our nation's capitol? I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what that that tells us. So Norman, why don't you tell us a little bit deeper about who you are, why you became who you are. And and this journey of going from a legislature and consultant to transitioning into clinical hypnotherapy? I mean, this is crazy. It's crazy talk, you know, what most people would consider. So let's, let's just get into it. Norman. Tell us about yourself and how you became who you are.

Norman Plotkin 1:15  

Yeah, a long strange trip. It's been right. So I, you know, I grew up on a ranch and I didn't go to college right away, I went in the Marine Corps. And then I got out of the Marine Corps, and I worked in the oil fields and rock plant where I made little rocks out of big rocks, like Fred Flintstone and, and then I was doing construction line work, climbing telephone poles thinking that the world looked up to linemen, and to some extent they do, but I ran into an experience, my brother was killed in a car accident, and I reevaluated everything, and I shut down what I was doing then and went back to college. And I was in a hurry, because now I'm 25. And feeling behind. And so I went to community college, I did speech and debate and Student Government transfer to the university and graduated in three years, with a bunch of internship credits. And because I, you know, went to school in Sacramento, where the capital was and, and galis internships, the government chair on my exit interview, looked at the number of 18 units of internships that that'll never happen again, you know, I said, well, then everybody has now why you come to Sacramento, right? So, at any rate, I got within the first semester, I got a job as a clerk in the state assembly. And from clerk to consultant, I ran campaigns, I became a committee consultant, that I was hired by the Medical Association to lobby to lobby doing that for several years and then and then struck out on my own and had my own lobbying firm.

Ari Gronich 2:56  

Actually, I'm gonna interrupt you for a second, I have a question about that. You are a marine. Now you're learning meditation? Where did those two things combined? Because I know a lot of Marines I know a lot of Navy SEALs, and they're meditating constantly during during conflict. I mean, that's how they get through the conflict. Did you find that there was any correlation there between the meditating and and your experience in Marines?

Norman Plotkin 3:27  

Well, the, the power of the mind. And the things that led me get, you know, helped me get through my experience as a marine was were the kind of things that led me to hypnotherapy. It wasn't until later that when I learned how to meditate, that I realized I was using breathing techniques. Before you know the navy seals, teach box breathing, you know, five seconds in five seconds out five seconds in five seconds out building a box. And I know that now, but when you're in it, I didn't understand it at the time. What I needed to do was get control of my overactive mind. I was faced with, you know, life threatening disease, and it's never just about the cancer in my marriage didn't survive that. You know, all the things I've worked so hard for my big house, my fast cars, all these things that I thought were important really weren't. But it's in that transition where you think you've losing the things that were important to you. That make that makes it difficult. So I learned to breathe and learn to meditate I learned era Aveda and my dosha and how to eat for my dosha and I learned a lot about myself. And then teachers began to appear. I read Wayne Dyer the power of intention. Carolyn meese anatomy, the spirit, Deepak Chopra is quantum healing. Joe dispenza. So many just began to appear my interest moved in that direction and I really the power of intention when Wayne Dyer I saw him speak in Pasadena in 2015, very powerful saw Carolyn nice at the same time, Joe dispenza. And I really wanted to put myself into the service of others, it became a serious thing. And so I walked away from the lobbying thing, I shut down the firm I moved to LA. And, and initially, I had taken a job as a as executive director of a trade association, which was akin to what I've been doing. And after a year of that, it, you know, I just, I didn't renew the contract. And I began to look in a new direction and I was led, I was led to I was looking at coaching and I saw this one program where the psychologists they said, Well, you need to get an edge add hypnosis to your coaching program. I said to myself, well, I thought that was fairly interesting thing, but I wasn't gonna go to a one week deal. So it turns out, the nationally accredited college of hypnotherapy is right there in Los Angeles. I was in Burbank, and it's in Tarzana. And I met somebody who'd gone. And I signed up.

Ari Gronich 6:04  

Nice. I noticed as I stated to you, before we started recording, I saw you and I went to hypnosis motivation Institute. Both went there and got our clinical hypnotherapy, certificates and so on. And it's a great school. This was the This was the first school for hypnotherapy in the country. Now, there's, you know, tons of them, I don't think any of them are, are quite as good as as HDMI. But tell me something, when when you were deciding to transition into coaching and deciding to transition into the consulting, you know, you've authored three books. What did you decide? Was the point of the three books? Like, each one, I'm sure has its own point. But how did you how did you decide the passion that you would put into those that content into those words, because a lot of people want to write a book, but they don't know if that book is going to sell, they don't know if it's going to be read, they just are passionate about putting their brain onto paper. And so out of the enormous amount of experience that you have, how did you decide those? Because I think all three of those made number one bestseller? Is that correct?

Norman Plotkin 7:33  

Two of them are bestsellers, the other was brand new, so

Ari Gronich 7:36  

Okay, two of them are our bestsellers. So, you know, tell us a little bit about the content of the books and what it is that you're trying to teach people?

Norman Plotkin 7:46  

Sure. So I always wanted to write a book. And it's getting to that focus place where what what's the story, you want to tell what what's the value to the reader. And so I tried really hard for three years to write a book about the cancer experience, and I got nowhere. So I hired a coach, I, I attended the author, incubator program, and having the ability to focus, you know, I, who knew that I was unsuccessful for three years, because I was trying to write more than one book at once, you know what I mean? So getting really clear on who my reader was, and what my message was, was the upshot of having a coach who's helped, you know, literally 1000s of people write books. And so it became the, the cathartic memoir of the cancer experience. And so I was able to organize it into the seven proven steps to healing and recovery. So that was, that was the first book in it, and it felt really good and and it's really about a message of hope. And that for people when you're in the middle of it, you've got the skin in the game and you really need to be your own captain. And that's the take charge.

Ari Gronich 9:10  

Yeah, so I want to know what that what these seven proven steps are. Because so I was people a lot of people don't know, I used to be on the advisory board for a long time of a cancer nonprofit called marathon and miracles and we were mostly alternative healthcare and and we would help people get solutions that were not necessarily the chemos and the radiations and the toxins and the and the medicines and pills, but things like Gerson you know, protocol with coffee enemas. I mean, these are the things that people don't know that they really really want. A drink Doritos, herring, a juice, drinking bitter green juice, right. That was something that people don't know that they don't want. So yeah, what are the what are the seven proven techniques and let's just go one by one and then kind of talk them out.

Norman Plotkin 10:08  

All right, I've done Gerson, I've done Granny, Granny Smith, apple juice, you know, three days, nothing but, and those, those are powerful. Those are powerful methods. But the seven steps begins with radically change your diet. We have what's known today in America as the sad. Yeah, the standard American diet. And it's making people sick, processed foods, high fat, fast foods. It's really important to eat, to live and eat foods that are not processed. And so there's a whole there's a whole chapter on it, but a high level is Eat to Live and so radically change your diet.

Ari Gronich 10:56  

Right. But Americans love to live to eat. Not not Eat to Live. Yeah. And, you know, they're unwilling to forego the fried chicken from Kentucky Fried or, or the MSG from places, you know, I mean, they're unwilling to do that. So how do we explain this in a way that somebody can say? I'm going to do that, because that sounds a lot better than having my organs eaten from the inside out. Right.

Norman Plotkin 11:27  

So yeah, I mean, I deal with people who smoke cigarettes and the package on it says, Surgeon General says this could kill you. And they do it anyway. So. So that's one of the chapters to the subconscious mind, I'll get to that in a second. But because you know, change is hard to change. One thing in your life is hard to change seven things is nearly impossible for some, so radically change your diet, learn to meditate. getting control of your self talk is super important, because you're listening, and so is every cell in your body. So meditation, and getting control of your active mind, the mind can be the master or the slave.

Ari Gronich 12:07  

Towards the end of this conversation, I just wanted to lead it back there because I want people to have tricks and tools and tips and things that they can do to make their life better, to make their communities better to make the relationships more rich and vibrant and lively. So that suicide is not even in their consciousness as an option. Because they always know there's somebody out there to help, there's some kind of hope, some kind of thing that they could do. And so I wanted to bring it back there. And I want you to just talk about that a little bit. You know, as a subconscious, mindfulness healing coach person, I know that that this is some of the stuff you have to deal with every single day.

Norman Plotkin 13:01  

Love is our birthright. Love is God energy. Love, energy equals God, energy, whatever, by whatever name you call God, the divine. Having love in your heart space is your birthright. It's why you're here. And so, so often people wonder, why am I here? Why? These are all lessons, we're here, we signed up our soul. souls are eternal. We live we are eternal souls living a temporary biological existence in this very dense frequency that's known as Earth and emotion that lives here and people souls come here to learn about emotion because this is the only place that exists in the universe. And so each of these things are a lesson. I often find myself when I'm in my next embarrassing moment. Let me learn the lesson quickly. And, you know, what's, where's the lesson? Let me learn it quickly find the lesson, learn it quickly move on to my next embarrassing moment. But as long as we see it that way. You know, I mentioned earlier about the email I got from the guy who read my book and and credited the book with you know, having five months of chemo holiday and I, I asked myself, why did I get cancer? Why Why me? at all, this is great live, I thought that was great. Like, why did I have to get cancer What's the meaning of the cancer was to push through to find my true essential purpose in life, to be in the service of others using the power of the subconscious mind leading with love. And when I realized that the message of my channel Answer was to pull me out of a cesspool, and put me into a loving space helping others. When people leave my office, they float out of here feeling bad. And that just that lifts me up. That's, that's my reason for living. And so the pain of the cancer, emotion, emotional and physical. The fear was to direct me to my essential purpose to my soul's purpose. And once I realized that and stop asking why, why did this happen? Well, it was a lesson that I needed to learn and look what I learned it. Thank goodness, I did. And I did I learned it and it brought me to my soul's purpose. And so when you see that, the pain is a lesson. Then you dedicate yourself to learning what is the lesson here? making a game? Now it's a game, what is this pain? teaching me? What What should I learn so that I can move to the next lesson? That's what life is. It's a series of lessons. And if we get hung up on one, and give up, then what is this is what leads us to what's the purpose of life? Well, you forgot what the purpose of life was, you forgot that it's a series of lessons. So get in the game, and learn the lesson and move on to the next one. It may be painful, you may skin your knees. It may hurt your feelings. But do you know your life? And you do then what's the lesson here? Let me learn it quickly so that I can move on to the next lesson. That's why we're here. We're here to learn lessons so that our souls can evolve. If you get hung up on this is painful. You missed it, there's a lesson. And you missed the point of life. And when you remember, if you just fix in your mind that the point of life is to be here and to learn lessons and for our soul to grow and expand. And in so doing it expands others by our example. Right. And so it's in this way that we give meaning and value to our life. By understanding that this pain, there's some there's a lesson remember my favorite, oh, my favorite. The little boy who goes down the hallway and opens the door to his room and is full of horse poop. Nobody said there's a pony in here somewhere. So you see what I mean? Right? So, so bringing it bringing the discernment from your gut, to discernment. From your gut, what to then ask the question, what's the lesson here? Let me learn it quickly so I can move to the next lesson. The next lesson may be painful, accept it, accept that it may be painful, and learn it too. And at some point, the sun begins to rise. And the lessons are less painful. But now you're a teacher. Now you've had your shamanic journey, and now you're become a teacher for others. And that's what mine and yours I hear your story. And I've similar, you know, there was a there was pain, there was pain, and I've I've surveyed all of the all of the major religions I've tracked in in Nepal and studied Buddhism at the monkey temple. I, I my, my girlfriend is from China. And we study Taoism, you know, you talk about wanting to come to this country I have. She's a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. And you know, she came here from China. And I know a lot of her friends who come here from China, they people are eager to come to this country, it's still the things that it was founded on, are still so using our discernment and keeping love in our heart space. And understanding that what may seem painful is a lesson and asking to learn the lesson quickly so that we might move on to the next. This is the meaning of life.

Ari Gronich 19:07  

That's awesome. All right, three, count them three tips, tricks, actionable steps that can be immediately implemented. For anyone listening to this.

Norman Plotkin 19:24  

Well, I have to apologize. We recovered them in this wide ranging, but I'm going to recap them here for you. Cool. Bre Bre, Bre breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, do the box breathing if you need to. These are tactics that they teach people who are in high stress. And so breathing resets the autonomic nervous system. So anytime you're in a moment of stress. Deep breath into your nose,

Ari Gronich 19:52  

caveat not your mouth. I have a caveat for that. Breathe in hose, not in through your mouth when you breathe in through your mouth. you excite your adrenal glands. When you breathe in through your nose, you calm your adrenal glands, thereby taking yourself out of fight or flight and into a more balanced, relaxed state. It's really good, by the way, for people who have massive anxiety disorders,

Norman Plotkin 20:18  

absolutely enter the nose out through the mouth. Number two is love. Love is your birthright, it resides in your heart center. And if at any moment you don't feel that you're feeling loving, in your heart center, you're feeling fear. And that fear can be get so many other negative emotions and all it's really as simple as fixing in your mind, an icon that represents love for you, and then just imagining it in your heart space and bringing yourself into a place of love. Now, I in my spiritual journey, I have I have done, I have done a number on my ego, it used to be pretty big when I was a lobbyist. And I have reduced that ego to a very, very small now I just want to help people in the shortest amount of time, and there has to be going to be really good at what I do. But so in moments where I feel that ego creeping back in, I just come back to a place of love, I see a red rose, I see my little girl's face, you know, there are these things that just bring me immediately, my holding my mom's hand as she breathed their last breath at night, I was able to take her through hospice, and that just that moment, she brought me in, I escorted her out, and I was so grateful for that opportunity. But these are the things that represent love. And I bring that and fear melts away. So fear, love, not fear. And it's really as easy as that. And the third thing is back to Dr. Frankel, you are so powerful, and you leak your power, the moment you react to somebody without thought. So remember, between space, the space between action reaction, stimulus and response is your power. Because you get to decide what kind of human being you want to be those three things. They don't cost any money. They're easy to remember. And the upside for you is immeasurable.

Ari Gronich 22:11  

That's awesome. I have I like to add caveats to things, I have a thing about ego. Because I don't think that ego is this nasty thing that everybody seems to think it is. To me, the nastiness is when the ego is above the commitment, thereby pushing the commitment down. When you have it the other direction and your commitment is here. And your ego is pushing your commitment. To me, that's where you want to be. Because you want that ego, that identity, to push your passion to push your commitment forward. To be competitive with yourself not with others, but with yourself to be better you every time. And your commitment is here. So that ego is is the power that's underneath. It's like the wind beneath my wings, right? So the egos that wind, but my wings is the commitment.

Norman Plotkin 23:13  

Absolutely everything. Everything serves a purpose. And so, I mean, my business is Norman black in hypnotherapy. I mean, you can't remove myself from my ego and I'm pushing, I'm pushing my commitment. It's the same thing with liberty and responsibility, right, my Liberty ends where yours begins. And I enjoy Liberty because I have the responsibility to to you know, use it in a positive way. Right. So, absolutely. We don't want no ego. We just want in check under our commitment.

Ari Gronich 23:46  

And so, Norman, how can people get ahold of you if they want to get ahold of you?

Norman Plotkin 23:51  

I'm at Normanplotkin.com. And Normanplotkin.com. I'm on LinkedIn. Norman Plotkin Inc. Facebook. Norman Plotkin Inc. Instagram, Norman PlotkinCHT. All at Norman Plotkin for Twitter. I don't use that one very much. But

Ari Gronich 24:11  

is there a lot of you because I know there's no more Oregon inches on the planet other than this one. So there's Is there any potkins?

Norman Plotkin 24:20  

There are, believe it or not. There's a dentist in Monterey. There's a couple of attorneys. Yeah, there are other Norman potkins tune in you know, my grandfather came from the Ukraine in 1903. Turns out it means fisherman you know, the Black Sea there, you know that a lot of them. So at any rate, yeah, there are but none of none of them are hypnotherapists

Ari Gronich 24:42  

gotcha. All right. So audience if you'd like to get ahold of Norman you can reach him at Norman Plotkin got anywhere.com basically anywhere you. You want to look social media wise, Facebook or Norman plotkin.com. So I really enjoyed this conversation. Norman. Thank you so much for being You hear and you have given a tremendous value to our guests or to our audience. And I appreciate it. Thank you so much. And this is Ari Gronich. This has been another episode of create a new tomorrow where we are teaching you tips and tricks to create a new tomorrow today. Thank you so much for being here. I look forward to the next one.

Hi, I am here with Norman Plotkin, He is Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a medical emphasis as well as cancer wellness and recovery as an integrative medicine modality. Also certified for hypnotherapy in pre- and post-surgery, pain management, PTSD, smoking cessation, sleep, stress, anxiety and more. How I can help you: Cancer Recovery; Surgery Preparation, Smoking Addiction, Drug Free, Pain Free, Emotional Release, PTSD Therapy. here is the full episode hope you enjoy. Listen in your favorite podcast app.

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Ari Gronich 0:00  

Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I do not get results, they do not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system want to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are. Join me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gornich. And this is create a new tomorrow podcast.

Welcome back, everybody. This is Ari Gronich with create a new tomorrow. We are here today with Norman Plotkin. He is a hypnotherapist and author, a coach. He's been a health committee consultant for the California Legislature representing California physicians, his own private lobbying firms in nation states. And this is something I really want to talk to him about because I love government so much, as you all know. So I just wanted to put that out there that he has been one of the evil ones. Maybe we'll see lobbying in our nation's capital. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what that that tells us. So Norman, why don't you tell us a little bit deeper about who you are, why you became who you are. And and this journey of going from a legislature and consultant to transitioning into clinical hypnotherapy? I mean, this is crazy. It's crazy talk, you know, what most people would consider. So let's let's just get into it. Norman. Tell us about yourself and how you became who you are.

Norman Plotkin 2:13  

Yeah, a long strange trip. It's been right. So I, you know, I grew up on a ranch and I didn't go to college right away, I went in the Marine Corps. And then I got out of the Marine Corps, and I worked in the oil fields and rock plant where I made little rocks out of big rocks, like Fred Flintstone and, and then I was doing construction line work, climbing telephone poles thinking that the world looked up the linemen, and to some extent they do, but I ran into an experience. My brother was killed in a car accident, and I reevaluated everything, and I shut down what I was doing then and went back to college. And I was in a hurry, because now I'm 25 and feeling behind. And so I went to community college, I did speech and debate and Student Government transfer to university and graduated in three years, with a bunch of internship credits. And because I, you know, went to school in Sacramento, where the capital was and, and galis internships, the government chair, on my exit interview, looked at the number of 18 units of internships that that'll never happen again, you know, I said, Well, this doesn't everybody is not why you come to Sacramento, right? So, at any rate, I got within the first semester, I got a job as a clerk in the state assembly, and from clerk to consultant, I ran campaigns, I became a committee consultant. Then I was hired by the Medical Association to lobby to lobby doing that for several years, and then and then struck out on my own and had my own lobbying firm. And I love the strategy. You know, as a Marine, former Marine, I've loved the strategy. I love the politics, I love, but not so much the politics, but you have to understand the politics to understand how to get to the policy. I love the strategy and the, you know, the development of public policy. So I did that. And it was a lot of fun. It was intense at times, the money and the politics, it's just, it's the unsavory part that in the end, when I had my own firm, I represented oil, automotive and energy, but it was small oil. You know, I had the California independent Petroleum Association, and it wasn't big oil. And I had, you know, the automotive aftermarket And oftentimes, we fought with the big car companies right and, and energy at the energy service providers against the monopoly utility. So so on, you know, on its face, it looked like I had all of the old you know, the the The power industries and whatnot, but it was really the underdog, guys. But at any rate, after 25 years of that it made me sick, the stress the the dirty politics, you know, that I tried to stay away from but it's, it's ever present. And so I had cancer, I had papillary carcinoma, and I had a radical thyroidectomy and lymph node resection, and that, you know, I just wanted to get back to normal. And I didn't realize at the time that normal my normal was what made me sick. And so that began what's been eight, nine years spiritual journey and awakening. And so what after it came back six months later, I had to have another round of radiation. I began to reevaluate a friend of mine had gotten out of politics and opened a yoga studio, she took me through therapeutic yoga for cancer. She taught me how to meditate, which, you know, the, the, the tools, the gifts, I was, given my mind, you know, the, my analytical mind was great for the things I've been doing. But it's very difficult to get past in order to, you know, to do real meditation. And so, I have a, I

Ari Gronich 6:21  

actually, I'm gonna interrupt you for a second, I have a question about that. You are a marine. And now you're learning meditation. Where did those two things combined? Because I know a lot of Marines I know a lot of Navy SEALs. And they're meditating constantly during during conflict. I mean, that's how they get through the conflict. Did you find that there is any correlation there between the meditating and and your experience in Marines?

Norman Plotkin 6:52  

Well, they're the power of the mind. And the things that let me get, you know, help me get through my experience as a marine was the kind of things that led me to hypnotherapy. It wasn't until later that when I learned how to meditate, that I realized I was using breathing techniques. Before you know, the navy seals, teach box breathing, you know, five seconds in five seconds out five seconds in five seconds out building a box. And I know that now, but when you're in it, I didn't understand it at that time. What I needed to do was get control of my overactive mind. I was faced with, you know, a life threatening disease and it's never just about the cancer in my marriage didn't survive it. You know, all the things I've worked so hard for my big house, my fast cars, all these things that I thought were important really weren't. But it's in that transition where you think you've losing the things that were important to you. That make that makes it difficult. So I learned to breathe and learn to meditate. I learned air Aveda and my dosha and how to eat for my dosha and I learned a lot about myself. And then teachers began to appear. I read Wayne Dyer, the power of intention, Carolyn meese anatomy, the spirit, Deepak Chopra's quantum healing Joe dispenza. So many just began to appear my interest moved in that direction. And I had really the power of intention when Wayne Dyer, I saw him speak in Pasadena in 2015. Very powerful saw Carolyn meese at the same time, Joe dispenza. And I really wanted to put myself into the service of others, it became a serious thing. And so I walked away from the lobbying thing, I shut down the firm I moved to LA. And, and initially, I had taken a job as a as executive director of a trade association, which was akin to what I've been doing. And after a year of that, it, you know, I just I didn't renew the contract. And I began to look in a new direction that I was led, I was led to. I was looking at coaching and I saw this one program where the psychologists they said, Well, you need to get an edge add hypnosis to your coaching program. I said to myself, well, I thought that was a fairly interesting thing, but I wasn't gonna go to a one week deal. So it turns out, the nationally accredited college of hypnotherapy is right there in Los Angeles. I was in Burbank, and it's in Tarzana. And I met somebody who'd gone and I signed up. And so it was really the power of the mind, my interest in the power of the mind, but from early on, as a marine and even before that, you know, on the ranch, working with large animals and whatnot, and then and then my desire to put myself into the service of others. So this this was the crossroads of the power of the mind and service to others, which led me to to want to open up my hypnotherapy for

Ari Gronich 9:59  

you I noticed as I stated to you before we started recording I saw you and I went to hypnosis motivation Institute at both went there and got our clinical hypnotherapy, certificates and so on. And it's a great school. This was the This was the first school for hypnotherapy in the country. Now there's, you know, tons of them, I don't think any of them are, are quite as good as as HDMI. But tell me something, when when you were deciding to transition into coaching and deciding to transition into the consulting, you know, you've authored three books. What did you decide? Was the point of the three books? Like, each one, I'm sure has its own point. But how did you how did you decide the passion that you would put into those that content into those words, because a lot of people want to write a book, but they don't know if that book is going to sell, they don't know if it's going to be read, they just are passionate about putting their brain onto paper. And so out of the enormous amount of experience that you have, how did you decide those? Because I think all three of those made number one bestseller? Is that correct?

Norman Plotkin 11:28  

Two of them are bestsellers, the other was brand new, so

Ari Gronich 11:31  

Okay, two of them are our bestsellers. So, you know, tell us a little bit about the content of the books and what it is that you're trying to teach people?

Norman Plotkin 11:42  

Sure. So I always wanted to write a book. And it's getting to that focus place where what what's the story, you want to tell what what's the value to the reader. And so I tried really hard for three years to write a book about the cancer experience, and I got nowhere. So I hired a coach, I, I attended the author, incubator program, and having the ability to focus, you know, I, who knew that I was unsuccessful for three years, because I was trying to write more than one book at once, you know what I mean? So getting really clear on who my reader was. And what my message was, was the upshot of having a coach who's helped literally 1000s of people write books. And so it became the, the cathartic memoir of the cancer experience. And so I was able to organize it into the seven proven steps to healing and recovery. I was really moved on Thursday, I was getting ready to cook and family and friends and whatnot, I got an email from a from a guy who said, I want to thank you, because of your book, I'm on the fifth month of a chemo holiday. And it's really an Upshot, my, my son, who was 14, at the time saw a five star review on Amazon and my, my book and from a woman who bought it for a mother who had breast cancer, and she was it made a difference in her life. And she was very grateful. And he screenshotted and texted it to me and, and my response was, How cool is that? Now, if one person is better, because they read my book, then the whole cancer experience was worth it. Because when you go through these things, you look for meaning and why is a big question. And I no longer ask the why. And I understand the meaning. The the experience of cancer is there's a message in it and, and it whispers initially, and then it yells. And if you don't hear the yell, you get a new assignment, which is just a nice way of saying that, you know, it's it doesn't go well for you. So I I didn't hear the whisper but I heard the yell, and I reorganized my life and I put myself into the service of others. And so the first book became about my experience and then I read other books like Kathy Turner's radical remission, or Lisa Rankin, Dr. Lisa Rankin's mind over medicine. And I was fascinated that the people who survive all kind of do some of the same things, and how important is it to share, because when you're in it, it's disjointed. And that 1000 people have something to say, and you get 10 minutes with your doctor, and they don't you know, 10 o'clock when the questions really close in on you like the walls, there's no one there. And so, I gathered the seven things that I thought were super important that I did, and turns out others who have survived cancer have done and I put it into a book where, you know, take charge of your cancer. It's, it's it's pointed to men Women, you know, they gather around, they're there for each other, they, you know, they call their best friend and have a good cry men, men can feel isolated. And, you know, they don't they don't go to the doctor or women go to the doctor every year because they're a woman. Right? And so men tend not to do and they put things off until they're bad. So, so the first book was about was really about helping people who are in the middle of it. I wanted to call it the unwrapped gift. But my publisher said, you know, your readers who are in the middle of it aren't going to see it as a gift. She said, How long did it take you? I said, Yeah, it was a few years. So. So that was that was the first book in it, and it felt really good. And, and it's really about a message of hope. And that for people, when you're in the middle of it, you've got the skin in the game, and you really need to be your own captain. And that's the take charge.

Ari Gronich 15:55  

Yeah. So I want to know what that what these seven proven steps are. Because so I was people a lot of people don't know, I used to be on the advisory board for a long time of a cancer nonprofit, called marathon and miracles and we were mostly alternative health care and and we would help people get solutions that were not necessarily the chemos and the radiations. And the toxins and the and the medicines and pills, but things like Gerson you know, protocol with coffee enemas. I mean, these are the things that people don't know that they really, really want. Yeah, Doritos, herring, a juice, drinking bitter green juice, right? That was something that people don't know that they don't want. So yeah, what are the what are the seven proven techniques? And let's just go one by one and then kind of talk them out.

Norman Plotkin 16:53  

All right. I've done Gerson. I've done Granny, Granny Smith, apple juice, you know, three days, nothing but and those, those are powerful. Those are powerful methods. But the seven steps begins with radically change your diet. We have what's known today in America as the sad. Yeah, the standard American diet. And it's making people sick, processed foods, high fat, fast foods. It's really important to eat, to live and eat foods that are not processed. And so there's a whole there's a whole chapter on it, but a high level is Eat to Live and so radically change your diet.

Ari Gronich 17:40  

Right. But Americans love to live to eat. Not not Eat to Live. Yeah. And, you know, they're unwilling to forego the fried chicken from Kentucky Fried or the MSG from places, you know, I mean, they're unwilling to do that. So how do we explain this in a way that somebody can say? I'm going to do that, because that sounds a lot better than having my organs eaten from the inside out, right? So yeah,

Norman Plotkin 18:13  

I deal with people who smoke cigarettes in the in the package on it says Surgeon General says this could kill you. And they do it anyway. So. So that's one of the chapters to the subconscious mind. I'll get to that in a second. But because you know, change is hard to change. One thing in your life is hard to change seven things is nearly impossible for some so radically, change your diet, learn to meditate. getting control of yourself, talk is super important, because you're listening, and so is every cell in your body. So meditation, and getting control of your active mind, the mind can be the master or the slave. And so, you know, we we have a tendency to externalize that our power. And when we realize that, internalizing our power gives us much more likelihood that we can have exerts something on the external world because control is illusory. So that meditation and the self talk are super important. spirituality, it doesn't matter what, but all paths lead through the divine. Whether you go to a mosque or a church, whether you're Buddhist, Dallas, there's a belief in something larger than ourselves, is really, really important to connecting with humanity and connecting to something larger than ourselves. So spirituality, all paths lead through the divine. Then, you know, life is a contact sport. None of us get out of it alive. We get nicked up along the way. And oftentimes what we do is we start repress our emotions, and repress. And we have these defense mechanisms that we paper over these things. And if we don't resolve them, if they if they remain unresolved, we shut them down into our gut. And they accumulate. And the trauma, trauma is cumulative. And at some point, if you've had enough trauma, and you haven't resolved it, you haven't dealt with it. Your subconscious mind may perceive death as a way out of the pain, and start shutting down your immune system and creating dis ease. So releasing repressed emotions super critical, then communing with your subconscious mind, our programming, we believe that our conscious mind is in control with analysis, reason, logic, decision making and willpower, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. Our programming that was instilled from zero to eight years old, is what the conscious mind measures every decision against. And if it doesn't comport with our programming, we'll come up with a rationalization. Well, I know people who smoke cigarettes until they're 100 made and die, or I'm gonna die, everyone dies, I'll be old anyway. Right. So this conscious mind will come up with a rationalization. So learning to commune with your subconscious mind. And specifically, using hypnosis and hypnotherapy. To help tweak your programming is super important, then no one has more skin in the game than you do. It's important to listen to your doctors, it's important to show up for your appointments. It's important to do your research, but you really have to be the captain of the team. It means ask a lot of questions. And even if, even if they don't want to have questions, ask even if they only want to give you 10 minutes, ask for 10 more, and get to the bottom of things take charge. You know, you're gonna have specialists, a lot of them different ones, one pokes you with a big needle one, cut your organ out one, you know, manages your ongoing care one manages the the the application of therapeutics, whether they you know, cut, burn and poison is, is what I refer to it that because these are the high percentage therapies that allopathic medicine is, is taught to administer. But you are the one who needs to be the captain and don't let anybody push you around. And finally, you got to have a reason to live. Whether it's a grandchild, a child, the book you want to ride or a garden patch, having a reason to live and not just not wanting to die, is the love part, fear is not wanting to die. And the more you concentrate on not wanting to die and the fear that's associated with it, the more likely you are so having something to live for. We all do. If you just you know, fix on something that you need to accomplish. So diet, meditation, spirituality, subconscious,

releasing repressed emotions, taking charge, and having a reason to live. Those are the seven steps and I didn't make any of these up. None of them are groundbreaking. But the power of using each of them in concert, is the thing that is going to make the difference in your cancer experience.

Ari Gronich 23:33  

So did you find that when you were detoxing after the initial, you know, healing crisis that happens inevitably, with you know, the ups and downs of detoxification? Did you find that your mind changed? After you are already detox versus changing your mind and detoxing first? Or did they have to go simultaneously? But, you know, like, what was the major difference between before and after it just in your mindset, because I always found that for me. When I'm clean in my body, my mind is more clean. My thoughts are more clean, the things that I think about myself are more clean. And when I'm dirty in my body when I'm toxified then my thoughts are toxic. And my things are you know, right? So what did you find was at the stage in which your actions and your mind made made up, right? Because at first your actions are not going to be in alignment with your mind. We get that just get that off the shelf right at the beginning. At first, your mind and your actions are not going to be in alignment. When did you find that they became an alignment.

Norman Plotkin 24:56  

It's a process. So initially, when getting back Back to normal wasn't, you know, the old normal, the realization that the old normal made me sick and I needed to find a new normal that was and that's when I use the power of the mind. And so it was a will thing. And as I use the power of the my mind and opened up to new teachers and move my way into cleaner living, that then the mind, it became less of a struggle. So mind body, in concert, and you add in spirit, mind body spirit, then there's a flow, you know, we get into the flow state. And each, it becomes progressively easier. And as Dyer said, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change. And it's, it's really is true. As I clean my by stop drinking, I started eating healthy and mindful of portions and what it is I'm taking in, and I guard my thoughts. And my self talk is always very positive. And if I catch myself, I'm not, I don't, I'm not mad, I'm not attached, I just dismiss and move on. And so you know, living in such a way it's self perpetuating. And the clean body, the clean mind, the clean actions follow and it gets easier. So then there's less resistance, you know, we resist these things, because of our programming and the conscious mind may have every desire in the world to eat healthy. And the subconscious mind is going to put up a whole bunch of resistance because it doesn't comport with the programming. And so, so it's the resistance melts away. When our mind body and spirit are in concert. But for me, it began with the will, the strong line and the will. And then as I and then as I learned, and I added the the clarity, the clean living in it aidid. The it wasn't, it was mind, it didn't have to be so strong, right? And then the actions and the resistance falls away and the actions become easier. Okay, so

Ari Gronich 27:16  

I'm going to, I'm going to take this back a second, you're a Marine, you have a will that's been bred into you trained into you different than somebody who's not a marine. Right? So how does somebody get that will to start? What is that like? So I always ask questions, right? So my question is, is, do I want to live? You know, do you want to live? Are you happy with your life? Do you know like, these are the kinds of questions that I would ask if and then it's like an if, If yes, then what If yes, then what if no then what? Right? So that way we break kind of it apart into little pieces. But if somebody had doesn't have that innate will and discipline, because they haven't been bred into it, like you were then what? Like, how does somebody get that? beginning?

Norman Plotkin 28:20  

Well, that's your that's what led me to the hypnotherapy. Because even even with my strong will, and yes, it was I had a strong will. And I was attracted to the Marine Corps because of that. And then they just upped my strong wheel game, because as you know, you're going to Marine Corps boot camp, and I'm going to I'm going to get through this, it's three months of very, very difficult intense stuff, and they train you into mental toughness. So I saw I was predisposed to it. And I, you know, I accelerated it. And here's what happened, though, let me let me tell you that you can, it can go in the other direction, I was determined to keep living. I'm going to beat the saying, you know, I'm going to keep doing I'm going to live the way I want to live. And it came back and it scared me. And I knew fear for the first time because that hardheaded thing that I was just going to Will my way through it, I didn't change. I didn't make any changes. And I knew fear for the first time in my life, kind of like this, you know, the mother of all esophageal reflux, it comes up into your mouth and you know, getting rid of that taste of fear. Right? And, and that's where that's where I needed to learn subtlety around that will, which was, you know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Well, we all know what, what Albert Einstein said about that. So there are those who need help. I've needed help, too. And getting to a place where you ask for the help getting to the place where you invest in yourself to bring in like all the best coaches have coaches. So when it came time to get serious about writing my book, I got a coach, when it came time to be serious about changing behavior, it's, you may want to see a hypnotherapist because you're worth it. Alright. And so this is that I didn't just seek a therapist, I sought to capture that modality to use it for myself and in service of others. So while we don't all have that, metal, me TT le have the mental toughness of a Marine, it is within our reach. And it's, you know, a matter of deciding whether we're worth it to. So seek that out.

Ari Gronich 30:46  

Yeah, I just want to say to the audience, if any of you are going through this, or any trauma, any kind of medical, emotional, financial, psychological trauma, have people that you trust, connect with them, because it is so important. This is one of the biggest lessons I always had in my own life is I wanted to do it all alone, not because I had an ego about it. But because I had a massive fear of people disappointing me taking advantage of me not treating me the way I needed to be treated, treating me the way they were comfortable treating me. And so I never asked, so I've got a brain tumor. I've had it since I was at least seven, I've been a medical mystery my entire life. And and I was raped and molested. And I mean, I was, you know, I might, my history is crazy. Let's just put it out. It's crazy, the the history that I've had. And so therefore my training was, anybody I love is going to either let me down or abused me or think of me as a burden. And so if I love you, I can't ask you for help, because I'm going to be a burden, and then you're not going to want to be around me. Right? This was the programming that I was suffering through. So I'm sure a lot of the audience members have similar kinds of questions about asking for help men, as you said, we just in general, it's not something that we're taught. It's not something that we don't have tribal living anymore, where we're taken out by the men in the tribe, on a vision quest, where you know, where we learn how to be in a tribe, tribal society, we're trained to be individuals in an individual society doing individual things. And hopefully, maybe they help the collective right. But it's not collective, designed. It's not designed for the collective. So how do we get people and an audience I'm listening, I'm talking to you, and I want him. I want Norman to talk sheet to you right now. How do we get people who are suffering? to ask for help. And the only thing that I have ever come up with is, I need you to call me not the other way around when I'm in the place of despair. Because if I'm in despair, I'm not calling or reaching out. So it's not just the asking of asking for help, but it's the loved ones offering to sit with somebody who's suffering and not trying to change them, at least for me not trying to change me or change where I'm at just sitting with me. So I know that they frickin love me, right? So for you like, what it was, what what do you suggest, especially for men, but men and women? Asking for help? How do we get them to do it?

Norman Plotkin 34:07  

So one of the one of the symptoms of the thyroid cancer that I had was depression. And I had a family member said, well just go outside and get some sunshine. I'm like, Oh, just go get some sunshine. Oh, of course. Why didn't I? Why didn't I think of that? I, I didn't want to ask for help. Because like, sometimes I would get crazy stuff like that. And many of us don't. My suggestion, and this goes across the board for many different things, but especially in this case, get out of your head and get into your gut. You see we have discernment. You have a gut feeling. Like we try to overthink things. And as soon as we started overthinking things for now we're going to compare it to our programming and the subconscious mind is going to derail us once again based on you know, the experiences There's a lot of, you know, a lot of folks who have that those early traumas that they have fear of abandonment, you know, these type things, and so they push people away before they can, you know, let me rip the scab off now before you do it, right. So if if we get to a place where we sit quiet and still so that I teach meditation, you know, sitting quiet, and still the beginning of the day before the 75,000 thoughts that you have every day that 90% of them are the same that were yesterday, sitting quiet, and still, you see, when we pray, we talk to our God, whoever our notion of God is, or divinity. But when we meditate, we listen. And that's when we get answers could come from God come from our higher self, or guardian angel, whatever you want to think of it as. But when we get out of our head and stop trying to steer it, and we get into our gut, and we, we open the door to discernment. I feel like crap. I don't trust anyone. I, you know, the walls are closing in. When we if we're gonna try and think our way out of it, we're gonna get into trouble. But if we go down deep into our gut, and we say to our stuff, what do I need right now? What do I need right now. And just leave that the subconscious mind, the higher self will come to answers. That friend that you can call, I was in the second round of radiation. I was sequestered for three days, because I was radioactive, couldn't let the meat into clean, I was shut in for three days. Now my marriage is failing, my kids are afraid, I waved at them through the window out in the parking lot. And to see the fear on their faces was difficult. But I had my friend john. And john and i talked, I said, john, you know, there's always been a trail has always emerged, I've always been able to see the trail, you know, I don't see a trail. And he talked me through it. So, you know, find your john. Go within and discern from a gut level.

Ari Gronich 37:12  

That's a really good advice. And I hope that, that the audience that's listening will take that advice, because it's so important to find your tribe to find the people that are there for you, in the darkest of your pain, let alone the light that you shine on them. Right. And, you know, I'm not a very religious person. I was raised, studying religions. And I I'm a Jewish, Buddhist, Peruvian Catholic, Native American, you know, practitioner, I mean, I practice I studied the Quran, I've studied Buddhism, I've studied Native American ceremony. And you know, what's funny about Native American ceremony, and I was thinking about this when you were talking about meditation, because I used to do a lot of sweat lodges. And in a sweat lodge, it's completely dark. It's like being in the womb, and extremely hot and uncomfortable. So the only thing that you can concentrate on is trying to keep yourself cool. And then allowing everything else to happen. But in Native American, you know, culture, they say, we want to make the ceremony as hard as possible, so that your life will be easy in comparison. And I really took that to heart when it came to considering the ritual, the ceremony of meditation, the ritual to Sarah, it's hard, it's hard to meditate, we had a Zen master, who used to go to the sweat lodge, because he said that he could get into a meditative state like that in the sweat lodge, where it would take him 20 or 30 minutes, you know, and this is a practicing Zen master for over, you know, a couple decades. And, and so, you know, I use a candle. As a focal point for meditation I use, sometimes I'll go in the shower, and I'll sit down in the shower, and I'll close my eyes and I'll just let the water pour over my head. And my meditation is anything that's not necessary. Anything that's superfluous is washing away, it's just washing down the drain everything you know, like, that's kind of my, my mantra in there. But let's, let's talk about some suggestions that you might have for somebody who's going through traumatic experiences, doesn't know how to meditate. They don't know how to take their brain and turn it into a focus on a focal point because it's so erratic. Right. So give us some, just some quick techniques for that. Sure.

Norman Plotkin 40:08  

Box breathing, we've covered it a second ago, five seconds into your nose, five seconds out through your mouth, five seconds into your nose, five seconds out, they teach it to Navy SEALs when they're in combat when they're in the middle of it. That's what they're doing to reset their autonomic nervous system. That's a simple one. Now. How about the Course in Miracles, it's a three volume, tome, you know, about lots of different stuff. The Reader's Digest version is this love is your birthright, it resides in your heart center. its opposite is fear. At any one time, you cannot be in love and fear at the same time. So I do regular check ins with myself throughout the day, am I coming from a place of love or fear? Fear is anger to the brain, the range of emotions that are associated with fear. You know, it's it's clear, you know, that, if it's not a happy emotion, it's a fear based emotion. So what I do is I, I teach people to have a icon of visualization, maybe it's a red rose, maybe it's a red heart, maybe it's a picture of their child or whatever it is fixed something that brings love and joy. And just visualize that in your heart center. And then fear falls away, because you cannot be in both at the same time. So these are simple exercises, breathe, bring yourself back to love. The other thing is a little more complex, but easily understood. Viktor Frankl psychiatrist, Jewish psychiatrist, concentration camp, he wrote the book mankind's Search for Meaning, and and develop the the logotherapy. But his quote, between stimulus and response between action and reaction is a space and in that space, lies your power, because you get to decide what kind of human being you want to be. Now you can be reactionary, and, and leak and bleed your power out to someone who just got said something to you. Or you can take a moment and decide who you want to be in that moment. and maintain your power, keep your power, and show up who you want to be your higher self knows who to show up as. So these are three very simple concepts that you can do. Because look at our world today. People externalizes their power to prisons, paid places and things left and right. He said, she said he did. She did. The news said the president that I mean you're leaking power to everybody. And so the notion that we can control our outer world is illusion, the outer world is illusion, the only thing that is real is your inner world. And when you take stock, and bring love into your heartspace, and define your inner world, based on your higher self understanding, this is how we maintain our sanity, and live our highest our highest possible. So this is this is five D stuff where the 3d world is dragging us down into fear. And the five D world transcends time and moves into energy. And we go there through love and compassion and unity instead of duality that transcended that individuation that connects is we're all connected. This whole thing about six feet, social distancing, this is where our heart energy picks each other up. You know, we're all connected. We can have non local experiences, where we call it synchronicity or, you know, these type of things. But we are all that tribe, that human tribe, we're all connected energetically. And we forget that and we externalize you know, we we recover ourselves out from the our humaneness. And we separate ourselves and to a dual experience. And that person outside of me said that she can you believe he said that? Oh, who cares? Who cares what anyone says? Or does, ultimately we have control of our inner world. And this is where our happiness and our peace and our humanity reside.

Ari Gronich 44:29  

Awesome. So I'm going to go back to something that is completely on a different topic now because i think that i think the audience has gotten this. So one of the things that you said just now is similar to what I say which is it's all an illusion. I say, we made this shit up. We can do better. That's really simple. This is Entire world, from the buildings that we see to the money that we think is so important. We created the things that we didn't create our bodies, the trees, the nature right around us, that was created by somebody else, or something else either way. But what we created is all of the systems that we live by all of the things that we think are so important that we get so riled up about as if it is the only an absolute way. So I'm going to go back to private lobbying, Norman Plotkin. And what I'm going to ask you is this, should we as a community, as a society, as people in general, try to do something about the policies and the government and the stuff that we're going through? Or should we stop trying to change the government? start changing ourselves? Because we are the freaking government? See, I think people think that this is some kind of outside entity that doesn't, you know, that's like away from the people. The government is away from the people. It's a separate entity from the people. But yet, the people are the people who make the government who make the laws, all that stuff. So this is this is where, where my questioning comes in, because I've like looked at, okay, do we want to change healthcare for the better? Or do we just want to create a new system, start as a small thing, and then put it right next to the big you know, honkin? You know, system that's ineffective? And wait, wait, wait for people to show up and say, Oh, hey, I like that one better, right? Or should we go through that lobbying and that policy change in order to force it to force the change, or let it happen organically. And that's for it doesn't matter if it's medicine or agriculture or systems right. Then

Norman Plotkin 47:33  

I used to believe you know, and the power and the power to influence and, and to develop policy. We have devolved into a quagmire, it's, the system is broken. There is no real distinction. The parties are the same. The corruption is across the boards. We the organic approach is far better. But look, we've been asleep. We've been entertained by television, and movies, and sports, and all of these things that really don't matter when we've been asleep, and we've left it to someone else. And while we'd love to do someone else, you know, the fox is guarding the henhouse. And now, all the hens are dead. Right, and all we have left is the boxes in the henhouse. And so it's time to wake up. But you know what, with all with this year, this year, we all began with vision boards and resolutions to have our own personal 2020 vision. But you know what? It wasn't about our personal vision, it was about humanity's vision. And so the whole COVID thing, this is waking people up, television will never be the same. Hollywood will never be the same. Sports will never be the same. Our government will never be the same. This is the this is a year I used to think you know, as we transition from Pisces, which was you know, patriarchal and duality, dual conflict into Aquarius, which is energy, feminine unity collaboration, I thought it was going to be rainbows and unicorns. But let's face it, any transition, any transformation is more like the subduction zone of a plague tectonic event, right? And so that's what we're seeing. It's happening, whether we like it or not, and so many of us are awakening many of us and so. So, I lead the weekly meditation of a group of folks who come because what, what do we know we know there are studies the Maharishi effect that when people get together and collectively meditate, they can reduce disease, they can reduce crime, there are non local impacts were from collective action, and so many of us are waking up into this fifth dimensional thing where love is in our heart space compassion for our fellow human beings, who cares about this, this pop culture stuff that has absolutely zero to do with anything but to lull us into asleep. And so whether we like it or not, it's happening. And when enough of us when we get to critical mass will lift the others who may or may not be aware of it. And institutions are changing. And at you know, as our social institutions and political institutions, the change must come from ourselves first, and we must open our eyes and become aware to the illusion and the corruption. They we weren't minding the store, while big banks are just robbing, you know, they're in bed with the politicians, the banks, corporations, I know, all of my worldview was destroyed this year. You know, I'm really glad I had the opportunity to help my parents in 2018 transition. Because I'm glad they didn't see this world, they grew up in a different world. My dad was in World War Two, my mom, you know, the depression, she taught me how to cook with very little more than bacon grease, and flour, and I can make all kinds of stuff. So you don't mean I'm glad, I'm glad they transition, they live long lives into their 80s and 90s. I'm glad they didn't see this because it's ugly and nasty and brutish. But on the other side is amazing. And what we what we have to do is keep loving our heart space.

Ari Gronich 51:33  

Right? I think it's absolutely necessary, what we're going through. I'm a little bit disappointed that it's taken us a little longer than Thomas Jefferson said, when it comes to the revolution, you know, 25 years, should be a revolution every 25 years. So I'm, you know, disappointed that that's taken us longer, and that we don't really pay attention too much. One of the people I was talking to said, you know, the thing is, is that people have created this, this world in which you have to be active 40 hours a week, minimum 40 6080 hours of work, and they don't have time for public service. They don't anymore, they don't have time, because both parties have, you know, family, both husband and wife are working. And so nobody has any time anymore, to pay attention anything other than survival. And when I hear somebody say I'm woke, or he's woke or we're woke, but they're not. And you know, I'm like, I i get i get the the thought of, I'm woke but there's 70 million people who thinks that they're woke up on one side, and another 70 million who think that they woke up on the other side, and none of them get that none of them are woke yet. Like they're not, they're still just preaching the same storyline that either echo chamber is uttering versus their own storyline based on their own beliefs, because they can't have their own beliefs anymore, because they've been programmed their beliefs based on their echo chamber, which is typically social media or news or whatever that is that they watch, right. And so, I look at this because, you know, as a hypnotherapist as a as a somebody who is well trained in the subconscious mind in the places that we don't like to go. Right. My question, Is it is it possible without massive destruction, which is typically what happens before a transition into something more beautiful. You get a fire before a forest is fertilized right? Is it possible at this point without massive destruction? To get people back to a place where critical thinking, nuanced thinking, common sense? Looking, you know, and being an active participant in our government, in our politics, in our society, in our block, I mean, you could go out my street, and nobody's hanging out on the block anymore. You know, I'm sure that that's happening all over the country, lock parties aren't happening, communities aren't getting together. Is it possible without massive destruction to get the subconscious mind to shift that drastically in time for what we need in order to shift this or is it just going to be played out as it plays out?

Norman Plotkin 54:49  

Well, it will play out as it's meant to be. And if we try and rush it, there's a great there's a great Chinese concept that Chinese Tao is concept of Wu Wei, it translates in not action, but it's not non action. It's no action until the action is right. And then when when you wait till the time is right, then you act in flow. And it's amazing, right? But if we rush, if we force, if we cajole, you're going to have a perverted outcome. So we wait until the time is right. And so it's going to be, we're watching it now. It's happening now it's crumbling around our feet. It's like the tower card and Tarot, it, but what the great what people miss in the Tarot tower card is the laser like focus with which we emerge, you see, so newspapers have been dying a slow, agonizing death for 10 years. And it's being sped up now. And so to is the news, what we consider the nightly news that or the even the 24, Seven News, it's devolved into a food fight. And it will not survive the current, it will not, it will not survive the current. And so you'll, democracy in America, written by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1832, he marveled at Americans propensity to associate, we associate it all. So when, when to your, to your point about people are too busy, both parents are working, there is enough time to do what we want to do. We you can tell what's important to people by how they organize their life. You see, all the jabber in the world doesn't mean amount to a hill of beans, if your actions are showing something completely different. So there is enough time to do what's important to us. And as we, as we emerge, there's going to be some pain. And we're in the middle of the pain. It's not a pleasant time right now. And but people are awakening to the notion of that they've been asleep. And that, because they've been asleep, the the autopilot has flown us in a very bad direction. And we've abdicated our responsibility to people who are crooks, basically, who don't have our best interests in mind. And so there it will emerge through our association. So maybe it's maybe we identify with a certain group or, you know, this, but not what I'm not talking about is identity politics, what I'm talking about is, is things that you'd like to do. And so and you and you hang out with other people who like to do it, and this has been a thing about Americans since the beginning. And so it's through our associations that we will unite and, and emerge with a different with a different perspective, and a different way of going about things. I'm not sure what it's going to look like, I'm kind of excited to see. But I don't think we can rush it, nor should we. And I would I think if we remain with that, that gut feeling that that intuition, that that discernment, and have our heart space is filled with love. That's, that's our job. You see. And when enough of us do it, collectively, we'll write our course.

Ari Gronich 58:28  

Right? So you know, my, here's my suggestion to people in the audience, whether you're a church group, whether you're in a men's group, women's group, is this association, friendships, things like that. I'm going to give you a challenge. The challenge is to find five people other than yourself. Figure out what you guys are all passionate about equally. And then create a plan for how to actualize that. So I have a friend, her passion is to stop child trafficking. That's her passion. She's got a nonprofit, she's an amazing person. And she has collected a few people around her who also have that same belief, and then they've gone out to start making changes, right. But once you have that group of five or six, my next challenge is to find another group of five or six that have the exact same passion, maybe different skill sets, but the exact same passion. Connect with them and combine Efforts versus having to have the ego of being the only one who's doing it's getting the credit for making that change or making that shift. Because, to me, the thing that is, and it's a challenge, because it's so difficult for people to do this, I want the credit, they want the credit, he wants to credit, who cares who the credit gets, as long as child trafficking is gone, right? As long as bullying is done, as long as you know, we're not poisoning the water anymore, right? So get people you don't want you know, poison in your in your food. Okay, get five people, and then have them get five people and then have to get five people and create that passion together. That's my challenge. We've been we've been at this conversation a while. I'm enjoying myself tremendously, actually. And

Unknown Speaker 1:00:58  

as am I,

Ari Gronich 1:00:59  

I love these conversations. Do you have to go anywhere? Do you have any meetings? No. Okay, good. So lobbying. I just want to finish this before we go back to, you know, the other part. Politicians, you've had dealings with them all, all of them believe that they are. That they're the Savior, that they're that they're a good in the world? Right? nobody feels like they're the ones that are causing the policies, they think that the policies that they're creating are for the benefit of society, right. So you've been around them a lot? Is it malicious? Or is it just a matter of belief? That may not be optimal? Is it malicious for money? Is it you know, or is it just ignorance of, of factual reality? What is it

Norman Plotkin 1:02:09  

it's some are corrupt every fiber of their body. Most are people who were popular in school that they networked heavily. They, they believe in the right thing. And they're asked to, to, to serve. And that's how it's done. And most of them arrived, bright eyed and bushy tailed. And it doesn't take long before they're believing their own press releases, and the self aggrandizement. You know, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. You know, we've created a professional corps of elected officials, who get very used to entitlement. And if they only learn grace, you see the self justification melts away in the face of grace. But they are all about self justification, they're doing the people's business now. Now, I'm, you know, the end justifies the mean, because, you know, I'm helping people. Well, you're helping yourself first. I mean, this whole entitlement thing, this professional class of politicians, it's, it's toxic, and they, they believe they're good people. But in order to survive, it requires corrupt action. If to look the other way, you have to, you have to subordinate your own beliefs and your own conscience for the party and the cause, and the money and the highlight, it's just, you know, it's corrupt. And it's both sides. And, you know, every two years I would campaign and I'm like, it's gonna be that we're gonna win this time. It's gonna be different. Whenever they get in, they play the game,

Ari Gronich 1:04:16  

right? So as a Marine, and I'm, I'm bringing it back to this. Because I've had a lot of friends in the military. One of my close friends was a POW for five years in Vietnam, and ended up in prison for 15 years thereafter because of police brutality on him. Mind you, he you know, he learned how to do OPM really well in in Vietnam. So you know, he wasn't perfect, but he led a team of five men into Cambodia. And just You know, an amazing human being. But when I used to talk to him, I would ask him the question, is this the country that you fought for? And so I'm going to ask you as a marine. Because there's a lot of military people who who might listen to this, and I want, I want them to have a voice. Because I've dealt with a lot of VA, I've worked at the VA and LA, PTSD work a lot of deep emotional release. So is this the country as a marine that you fought for? And if it is, or if it's not? What about it is or not? And how do you see service in the military, or for any government position, whether it's Peace Corps, or charitable work, or whatever, as a place where we can come back to creating a country that would be worthy of fighting for. And I'll just preface it with one more thing, if I remember, because it was just on the tip of my tongue. But if it's worth fighting for what needs to happen now, so that our military members who are sacrificing everything can feel in their hearts like they're doing this, not for the paycheck, not that it's much of a paycheck. But they're doing it for a country that's worth fighting for.

Norman Plotkin 1:06:55  

If you've traveled the world, you know that there are people who are dying to get here. That hasn't changed. The ideals that this country was founded on are still the ideals that this country was founded on. We've been asleep and allowed gangsters to take over. And it is the country that I wrote a blank check for up to an including my life for it's the country that my father served in World War Two for well we need to do is return to the sense of belonging that the greatest generation didn't need to be taught.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:47  

We,

Norman Plotkin 1:07:49  

we've become selfish and distracted and asleep. And as a result, we've lost our way. The corruption, I mean, the pay to play, you know, I, I could go into details. But you know, everyone has their own politics, if we get if we devolved into politics, you're gonna offend somebody, and but, you know, the pay to play, and it's on both sides. But that that has severely tarnished our institutions. And it's based on greed. And the back to the notion of power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So there are millions who have served, and they continue to serve, you know, part of part of the problem is geopolitical dynamics. You know, we made a deal. In the 70s, we went off the gold standard. And petroleum was traded in the dollar. And in order, and what does that do? What do we get for that, that strengthens the US dollar and our currency is strengthened, because the world trades in it? But what did we have to put up for that we had to put up our military and become the top of the world to trend to safeguard the transportation of petroleum? Right. And so people?

Ari Gronich 1:09:24  

I don't think a lot of people know that. That was the beginning of of that it was also the end of the draft, which is the other question I had for you, which is, I believe that we should have some form of public service be mandatory, whether it be a draft, whether it be you know, Peace Corps, whatever. I believe that some kind of service when you're 18 1920, you know, in those that age range ish area, in order to teach people reteach people about service to their fellow man.

Norman Plotkin 1:10:02  

Totally agree. You know, I hated every minute of the Marine Corps. But I wouldn't trade it for the life of me. And I, maybe I didn't hate every minute of it. But you know what I mean? It wasn't, it wasn't the most pleasant

Ari Gronich 1:10:17  

knowing, oh, it's not. But how many people do you still know that were your brothers back then?

Norman Plotkin 1:10:23  

There's a handful, and we're tight. And, and even if I didn't know them, then all they got to know is that they were marine. And it did. That's all it matters. But and listen, when I when I got out, and I and I went into the, into the professional working world, my suit was pressed, my shoes were shined, my hair was cut, and people walk with a bearing that people recognize immediately. I didn't need to tell people that I was prior military. It just you could just tell. And it behooves me immensely throughout my career. I believe a national service of some sort doesn't have to be military. But so, so many people like to learn how to be a man or a woman, for that matter, you know, a little sewing kit. I sew buttons, I get the self sufficiency that goes you know, from is

Ari Gronich 1:11:24  

I, I found it really fascinating. That Gillette, and this single use razor was a military requirement for all soldiers in World War Two, because they needed to be able to shave because their their helmets and their things weren't fitting on them properly, like the gas masks and stuff. And so they had to have a shaving kit, it was required part of the gear. You know, it's not how much is good.

Norman Plotkin 1:12:01  

Do you know that I have, I shave every day, not very much. But with my Gillette track to that it was issued to me in the Marine Corps boot camp, it still works. Anyway, it's kind of funny. It's It teaches you how to adult. And, you know, it's a lost art. So I think, you know, we could benefit immeasurably from it.

Ari Gronich 1:12:25  

Awesome, thank you so much for that I I know, I kind of go on these conversations off the tangents in here and there. But I do that because I actually don't want it to be just an interview, I want it to be a conversation that can uplift that can, you know, put a fire under somebody's asked that can make them know that there's actionable things that they can do to change their life today. I mean, so many people feel so hopeless, helpless. I know, in my life, suicide was always an option. I had 28 friends commit suicide in my life. And that was always an option. My brother asked me once why I believe in God, I said, because if I didn't, I'd be dead. Because if I didn't believe that there was something higher than me, I wouldn't believe that there was a purpose for me. And therefore there's no reason to experience the amount of pain that I've had to experience in my life. Right. And I know that that's not an unusual way of looking at life right now. That especially during some of these times, there's been such a spike in the mental illness and abuse in the house in suicide and all these things. And so, towards the end of this conversation, I just wanted to lead it back there because I want people to have tricks and tools and tips and things that they can do to make their life better, to make their communities better to make the relationships more rich and vibrant and lively. So that suicide is not even in their consciousness as an option. Because they always know there's somebody out there to help there's some kind of hope, some kind of thing that they could do. And so I wanted to bring it back there and I want you to just talk about that a little bit. You know, as a subconscious, mindfulness healing coach person, I know that that this is some of the stuff you have to deal with every single day. Love.

Norman Plotkin 1:14:53  

Love is our birthright. Love is God energy. Love energy equals God, energy, whatever, by whatever name you call God, the divine. Having love in your heart space is your birthright. It's why you're here. And so, so often people wonder, why am I here? Why? These are all lessons, we're here, we signed up our soul. souls are eternal. We live we are eternal souls living a temporary biological existence in this very dense frequency that's known as Earth, an emotion that lives here and people, souls come here to learn about emotion, because this is the only place that exists in the universe. And so each of these things are a lesson. I often find myself when I'm in my next embarrassing moment, let me learn the lesson quickly. And, you know, what's, where's the lesson? Let me learn it quickly find the lesson, learn it quickly move on to my next embarrassing moment. But as long as we see it that way, you know, I mentioned earlier about the, the email I got from the guy who read my book and, and credited the book with, you know, having five months of chemo holiday, and I, I asked myself, why did I get cancer? Why, why me? at all, this is great live, I thought that was great. Like, why did I have to get cancer, what's the meaning of the cancer was to push through to find my true essential purpose in life, to be in the service of others using the power of the subconscious mind, leading with love. And when I realized that the message of my cancer was to pull me out of a cesspool, and put me into a loving space, helping others, when people leave my office, they float out of here, feeling that and that is that lifts me up. That's, that's my reason for living. And so the, the pain of the cancer, emotion, emotional and physical. The fear was to direct me to my essential purpose to my soul's purpose. And once I realized that I stopped asking why. Why did this happen? Well, it was a lesson that I needed to learn and look when I learned it. I think goodness, I did. And I did I learned it, and it brought me to my soul's purpose. And so when you see that, the pain is a lesson. Then you dedicate yourself to learning what is the lesson here? making a game? Now it's a game, what is this pain? teaching me? What What should I learn so that I can move to the next lesson? That's what life is. It's a series of lessons. And if we get hung up on one, and give up, then what is this is what leads us to what's the purpose of life? Well, you forgot what the purpose of life was, you forgot that it's a series of lessons. So get in the game, and learn the lesson and move on to the next one. It may be painful, you may skin your knees. It may hurt your feelings. But do you know your life? And you do then what's the lesson here? Let me learn it quickly so that I can move on to the next lesson. That's why we're here. We're here to learn lessons so that our souls can evolve. If you get hung up on this is painful. You missed it, there's a lesson. And you missed the point of life. And when you remember, if you just fix in your mind that the point of life is to be here and to learn lessons and for our soul to grow and expand. And in so doing it expands others by our example. Right. And so it's in this way that we give meaning and value to our life. By understanding that this pain, there's some there's a lesson remember my favorite, oh, my favorite. The little boy who goes down the hallway and opens the door to his room and is full of horse poop. Nobody said there's a pony in here somewhere. So you see what I mean? Right? So, so bringing it bringing the discernment from your gut, to discernment. From your gut, what to then ask the question, what's the lesson here? Let me learn it quickly so I can move to the next lesson. The next lesson may be painful, accept it, accept that it may be painful, and learn it too. And at some point, the sun begins to rise. And the lessons are less painful.

But now you're a teacher. Now you've had your shamanic journey, and now you're become a teacher for others. And that's what mine and yours I hear your story. And I've similar, you know, there was a there was pain, there was pain and i've i've surveyed all of the all of the major religions I've tracked in, in Nepal and studied Buddhism at the monkey temple I, I, my, my girlfriend is from China, and we study Taoism, you know, talk about wanting to come to this country I have, she's a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. And you know, she came here from China. And I know a lot of her friends who come here from China, they, people are eager to come to this country, it's still the things that it was founded on, are still so using our discernment and keeping love in our heart space. And understanding that what may seem painful is a lesson and asking to learn the lesson quickly so that we might move on to the next. This is the meaning of life.

Ari Gronich 1:20:55  

That's awesome. All right, three, count them three tips, tricks, actionable steps that can be immediately implemented. For anyone listening to this.

Norman Plotkin 1:21:12  

Well, I have to apologize. We we covered them in this wide ranging, but I'm going to recap them here for you. Cool, Bri Bri, Bri breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, do the box breathing if you need to. These are tactics that they teach people who are in high stress. And so breathing resets the autonomic nervous system. So anytime you're in a moment of stress, a deep breath into your nose. caveat out your mouth,

Ari Gronich 1:21:41  

I have a caveat for that breathe in hose, not in through your mouth. When you breathe in through your mouth, you excite your adrenal glands. When you breathe in through your nose, you calm your adrenal glands, thereby taking yourself out of fight or flight and into a more balanced, relaxed state. It's really good, by the way for people who have massive anxiety disorders.

Norman Plotkin 1:22:05  

Absolutely. And through the nose out through the mouth. Number two is love. Love is your birthright, it resides in your heart center. And if at any moment you don't feel that you're feeling loving in your heart center, you're feeling fear. And that fear can be get so many other negative emotions and all it's really as simple as fixing in your mind, an icon that represents love for you, and then just imagining it in your heart space and bringing yourself into a place of love. Now, I in my spiritual journey, I have I have done, I have done a number on my ego. It used to be pretty big when I was a lobbyist. And I have reduced that ego to a very, very small now I just want to help people in the shortest amount of time. And that's because I wouldn't be really good at what I do. But so in moments where I feel that ego creeping back in, I just come back to a place of love, I see a red rose, I see my little girl's face, you know, there are these things that just bring me immediately, my holding my mom's hand as she breathed their last breath at night, I was able to take her through hospice, and that just that moment, she brought me in, I escorted her out, and I was so grateful for that opportunity. But these are the things that represent love. And I bring that and fear melts away. So fear, love, not fear. And it's really as easy as that. And the third thing is back to Dr. Frankel, you are so powerful, and you leak your power, the moment you react to somebody without thought. So remember, between space, the space between action reaction, stimulus and response is your power. Because you get to decide what kind of human being you want to be those three things. They don't cost any money. They're easy to remember. And the upside for you is immeasurable.

Ari Gronich 1:23:59  

That's awesome. I have I like to add caveats to things. I have a thing about ego. Because I don't think that ego is this nasty thing that everybody seems to think it is. To me the nastiness is when the ego is above the commitment thereby pushing the commitment down. When you have it the other direction and your commitment is here and your ego is pushing your commitment to me that's where you want to be because you want that ego that identity to push your passion to push your commitment forward. To be competitive with yourself not with others but with yourself to be better you every time. And your commitment is here. So that ego is is the power that's underneath it's like the wind beneath my wings right? So the egos that wind, but my wings is the commitment

Norman Plotkin 1:25:01  

Absolutely everything. Everything serves a purpose. And so, I mean, my business is Norman black and hypnotherapy. I mean, you can't remove myself from my ego and I'm pushing, I'm pushing my commitment. It's the same thing with liberty and responsibility, right, my Liberty ends where yours begins. And I I enjoy Liberty because I have the responsibility to, to, you know, use it in a positive way. Right. So, absolutely. I we don't want no ego. We just want it in check. Under our commitment,

Ari Gronich 1:25:34  

and so, Norman, how can people get ahold of you if they want to get ahold of you?

Norman Plotkin 1:25:39  

I'm at Normanplotkin.com. I'm on LinkedIn. Norman Plotkin Inc. Facebook. Norman Plotkin Inc. Instagram Norman PlotkinChT. All at Norman Plotkin for Twitter. I don't use that one very much. But

Ari Gronich 1:25:59  

is there a lot of you because I know there's no more Oregon itches on the planet other than this one. So there's Is there any potkins?

Norman Plotkin 1:26:08  

There are, believe it or not, there's a dentist in Monterey. There's a couple of attorneys. Yeah, there are other Norman Plotkin. You know, my grandfather came from the Ukraine in 1903. It turns out it means fisherman you know, the Black Sea there. You know that a lot of them. So at any rate, yeah, there are but none of none of them are hypnotherapists. Gotcha.

Ari Gronich 1:26:30  

All right. So audience if you'd like to get ahold of Norman, you can reach him at Norman Plotkin got anywhere.com basically anywhere you. You want to look social media wise, Facebook or Norman plotkin.com. So I really enjoyed this conversation. Norman, thank you so much for being here. And you have given a tremendous value to our guests or to our audience. And I appreciate it. Thank you so much. And this is Ari Gronich. This has been another episode of create a new tomorrow where we are teaching you tips and tricks to create a new tomorrow today. Thank you so much for being here. I look forward to the next one. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world. Go to the website, create a new tomorrow.com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you just for checking it out and look forward to seeing you take the leap and joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.

Hi, I am here with Norman Plotkin, He is Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a medical emphasis as well as cancer wellness and recovery as an integrative medicine modality. Also certified for hypnotherapy in pre- and post-surgery, pain management, PTSD, smoking cessation, sleep, stress, anxiety and more. How I can help you: Cancer Recovery; Surgery Preparation, Smoking Addiction, Drug Free, Pain Free, Emotional Release, PTSD Therapy. Hear it live on Monday at 6 Am for the full episode in your favorite podcast app.

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Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Norman Plotkin 0:00  

Yeah, a long strange trip. It's been right so I, you know, I grew up on a ranch and I didn't go to college right away I went in the Marine Corps and then I got out of the Marine Corps and I worked in the oil fields and rock plant where I made little rocks out of big rocks, like Fred Flintstone and and then I was doing construction line work, climbing telephone poles thinking that the world looked up the linemen, and to some extent they do, but I ran into an experience. My brother was killed in a car accident, and I reevaluated everything and I shut down what I was doing then and went back to college and I was in a hurry because now I'm 25 and feeling behind. And so I went to community college, I did speech and debate and Student Government transfer to university and graduated in three years.

Hi, I am here with Justin Recla, He is an Army veteran and former counterintelligence agent who successfully transitioned counterintelligence techniques into the business world. As a corporate counterintelligence consultant, he increases trust and certainty for his client’s business relationships and founded the Clear Business Directory to promote transparency in business-to-business transactions. here is the Highlights of the episode hope you enjoy. Listen to the full episode in your favorite podcast app.

CHECK THIS WEBSITE BY JUSTIN RECLA TO LEARN MORE!

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JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

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https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

Hi, I am here with Justin Recla, He is an Army veteran and former counterintelligence agent who successfully transitioned counterintelligence techniques into the business world. As a corporate counterintelligence consultant, he increases trust and certainty for his client’s business relationships and founded the Clear Business Directory to promote transparency in business-to-business transactions. here is the full episode hope you enjoy. Listen in your favorite podcast app.

CHECK THIS WEBSITE BY JUSTIN RECLA TO LEARN MORE!

https://superpowerexperts.com/

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.